I have been hit over the head with my weekly discovery this week: take better care of yourself.

Change management can be draining. The energy we give to others is tremendous and often it is not reciprocated – it is seen as ‘that’s our job’.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING is taking care of you! You have to replenish your bucket: it is all too often that we realise this when it is too late.

I think one of the most important things in change is to have unbridled passion and drive which can be injected into the change. Enthusiasm and passion is contagious. If you are drained and have nothing left in your ‘energy bucket’ that is also contagious – and we don’t want people catching that!

So what do we do? The basics – no cost version: Meditate, eat well, get enough sleep, get help if needed!

The more expensive version: have a holiday, get regular massages, go on a retreat.

Make your own list and then plan to do one thing. It takes a long time to recover when you have drained your bucket: take action now and often…you (and the people you work) with will not regret that you did!

There is power in clarity and obscurity in assumption.

More often than not we do not assume that people adequately know how to move people through a change. Our role is to guide and watch closely for any wandering from the change path. We provide action lists, conduct meetings / coaching sessions to ensure that it all runs smoothly.

It seems to work like magic, quietly guiding groups through change and coaching those who are responsible for moving people through. While the duck looks calm on the surface, there is a lot of paddling happening under the surface.

We should never assume that people are proficient enough to manage the change on their own. We can never take our eyes away from the process for a minute and should be managing the process at all times. For when we assume that they are doing OK something slips.

Keep your eye on events, doubly clarify what needs to take place, step back and let the work begin – but never be too far away…

This week I have re-discovered that project groups appear to have a reaction (and sometimes a severe reaction) to the concept of planning. I can literally see people in groups sit away from the table at the mention of putting together communication plans and training plans. It is somewhat amusing to me but the seriousness of this sort of reaction shouldn’t be dismissed.

Normally, to move past the planning paranoia in their eyes, I explain that the construction of the plans won’t take as long as they think and I break the task down into small chunks. Once we get into the discussion about the logistics of communications and training they can clearly see why a plan is going to be a good thing

What I would like to do is actually diffuse the block of planning up front – stop the defensive block of those I am working with. Is it a change of language required? Is there another way?

I would be really interested in your thoughts and what you do to get people past the block of planning…

How do you measure success?

This week I have had measurements on my mind.

How do we measure the effectiveness of change? This is becoming an increasingly important area of what I am doing and I feel is lacking.

Resources on how to measure intangibles such as the effectiveness of communications and training seem to be very light on. Surveys, questionnaires and the like seem to be the only way to measure outcomes – I am not happy with that. Everything can be measured – I am just not sure what is the best way.

In the past, surveys have been a regular measurement method for me. I now want to tie measurements to $$ and ‘hard’ results. I need these in order to emphasize not only the success of the project but the importance of change management.

If you know of any resources or methods of measurement which can be used, please let me know – I am really keen to explore and discover more about measurement and implement these measurements into my work – I am sure that your input will help others as well!!

As we know the communications which we issue are critical to successful change management. My approach to planning and executing communication plans is focusing on the true intent of a message rather than sending out messages for the sake of them. I spend a lot of energy on ensuring that messages are:

- relevant
- clear, concise and correct
- sent by the right person to the right audience
- either informational or requesting action
- sent at the right time
- issued in the correct medium

When I create a communications plan, I detail each communication and make sure that the message hits those characteristics. This might seem a little daunting, but the reason I do it is because I often have a minimum of two projects on the go at any time and I can familiarise myself with the individual communication quickly.

This week I discovered that in order to take on a more intense communication workload I need to find a management tool which can automate (to a degree) the management importing, scheduling reminders, tracking and recording outcomes of communications. It would be great to have something other than a calendar system to schedule those communications. This will enable the process of keeping on top of all communications and enable me to manage more communication projects at a time. I am trying out a couple of options so I will keep you posted but any recommendations would be awesome!