The truth is change is coming to a theater near you and soon, but how it comes is entirely up to you. That is the measure of control you do possess. Change can come incrementally or manifest itself as the Big Bang!, and the latter will be much more disruptive than the former, we promise you.

Very often in our line of work we’ll hear someone in IT / IS or Corporate services say, Thank goodness that project is finally finished, as if one particularly pesky piece of business is behind them and it’s smooth sailing ahead. Well, no. If you don’t want to go through the Big Bang! experience (otherwise known as when the wheels fall off), this is not the mindset you should cultivate. Each and every day we at TAG spend considerable energy helping organizations become comfortable with the concept of incremental or continuous improvement. Why? Because if you’re constantly improving, you rarely suddenly arrive at the Big Bang! crossroad.

You can either be the Changer or the Changed, but it is better to be the actor than the acted upon. Change will not be denied. If you choose internal stasis through passivity or inertia, external agents will force you to change because the competition and market won’t take your everlasting comfort into consideration. . .and then what? Right. You’ve got the Big Bang! to survive, because staying where you were allowed the competition and the world to pass you by.

We know change is difficult, so we won’t belabor the point. Nevertheless, if you put the following conditions in place, it won’t be quite so arduous:

Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein said, “Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”  Since change is (ironically) a permanent state of being, leading an adaptable organization focused on steady, incremental improvement is vital. If change is anticipated and implemented without fanfare on an ongoing basis, the hysteria of the Big Bang! will be kept in check.

Indecision rarely leads to anything positive. In my 35 years of experience working with clients, I have seen enough snafus, courtesy of a reluctance or unwillingness to make a decision, to know that any decision would have propelled the organization forward or at least broken the log jam. If you are one of those hesitating or hugely disinclined to make a mistake (as we all are), here are some pointers I give my clients:

YOU DON’T NEED ALL THE INFORMATION TO MAKE A DECISION. Very often you have enough information based on experience (knowledge gleaned from past mistakes and successes) and objective data. If 20% of a problem isn’t well understood, go with the 80% that is. Today’s competitive market isn’t conducive to lollygagging.

IT MAY NOT BE ALL UP TO YOU. SOUND OPERATING PRINCIPLES SHOULD DIRECT YOUR DECISION-MAKING. Most organizations have a Mission Statement and Operating Principles that support it. For example, Starbuck’s Mission is to “ inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time,” and their operating principles focus on quality in their product, diversity and respect among their partners, and making their cafés a haven of humanity as well as contributors to the community. What are yours? What are the Operating Principles that will create the culture and guide the behaviors leading you to your goals? Here are some ideas to consider:

• We focus our resources on activities that differentiate our organization
• We use all resources efficiently and individuals to the best of their abilities
• We continually seek better practices and processes
• We challenge each other to achieve excellence
• We encourage the exchange of ideas and perspectives from every level of the organization, and use conflict as an opportunity for creativity and innovation
• We encourage and support risk-taking among team members to facilitate professional growth
• We recognize, value and reward collaboration and teamwork

If sound operating principles are developed and agreed upon, 90% of the decisions facing an organization will already be made.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BAD DECISION, ONLY A MISINFORMED ONE. Once better information comes to light, take corrective action. If you have based the initial decision on the 80% known and your Operating Principles, the fix should be an easy one.

Finally, make your decisions REAL by assigning responsibility and accountability. Set milestones with deadlines and consequences for missing them. . .otherwise, decisions are merely good intentions, and we all know where those lead.

Making decisions means risking what is known for what is not. In my line of work, I have seen many organizations mired in keeping the status quo because the bogeyman in the hall is whispering, what if you’re wrong? The irony, of course, is that by not making a decision—right or wrong—you end up doing nothing, and this poses a far greater risk because your competition is certainly doing something. ​

Fear of the unknown and fear of being wrong are formidable inhibitors to decisive action. There are others, such as a reluctance to be held accountable, but even that is anchored in fear. Another inhibitor is being overwhelmed by the number of factors involved: the people who will be affected, the processes that will change, available resources, and so forth—aspects I call the “what.” The “why” of a decision is the part usually easily identified; Something has driven the case for change. It may be an eroding top line, a dissatisfied customer, excessive overtime, the competition, or staff malaise. But how to address the “what”—that becomes the immovable object stopping many decision-makers from acting quickly and decisively. Often, they feel compelled to have all the answers before embarking on any course of action. Unfortunately, seeking those answers, they usually consider the internal ramifications—conditions within their control—and neglect those coming from external sources such as the market, competition, technological advances, etc. And those considerations don’t wait.

This is why Change Management is an important weapon in your arsenal against indecision and inaction. Change Management builds the business case by objectively assessing what is versus what should be and engages the organization in why it is good for them. It garners the right sponsorship and builds coalitions; it demands commitment and ferrets out resistance; and it focuses the entire organization on a singular goal. Change Management is grounded in communication—communication that is clear, consistent, and candid. Change Management champions intellectual honesty and trust, and encourages open dialogue and debate that fosters buy-in and mitigates the possibility of decisions being undermined.

Theodore Roosevelt got it right: “In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” Decisions should evolve; they should never be made in a crisis. Making decisions is a daily event. If you don’t make the small ones today, you will have to make a big one tomorrow—chances are, it won’t be pretty.

The good news is that this can be done with small steps, consistency, and attention to detail:

1. Maintain documentation. How often have you looked for information only to find that the only available documentation is three years old and woefully outdated? Assign people—and hold them accountable—to keep documents such as policies, procedures, training materials, and system specifications current. This is particularly critical when members of the original project team leave the organization and new employees are hired. Don’t rely on tribal knowledge.

2. Provide continuous communication and training to everyone who is affected by the newly installed changes. Proactively distribute news and tips via email distribution lists. Get on the agendas of regular meetings. Post information on your organization’s intranet site or internal portal. Thoughtfully consider if new training modules need to be offered as the system develops. Offer refresher brief training or “lunch and learn” style sessions to address knowledge gaps.

3. Keep business leaders engaged with updates, issues, and progress, especially after the project governance structure has disbanded. An information vacuum can leave management wondering, “What did we get for that expensive change initiative we launched last year?” Keeping leaders updated has an additional benefit; it earns you the credibility to ask them to help remove obstacles as they arise during the system’s or process’s evolution.

4. Value and respond to individual needs and provide coaching or assistance when needed. Organizational change happens at the individual level, one person at a time. Each person you assist provides them with confidence, reinforces the change in the organization and likely wins you a person more willing to embrace whatever changes come in the future. You will have subtly developed a network of change champions.

Sustaining change requires discipline, but it’s not as time- or resource-consuming as it appears. It’s a relatively small investment of effort that pays substantial benefits. Safeguard your project achievements by not resting on your laurels.

Two weeks ago, my team and I reached out to our network of past and present clients and colleagues with an update on what TransAccel has been up to. We received so many kind responses with great feedback on our website and more. But we also heard one question consistently: Can you help me better understand what you do?

I’d like to use this blog to tackle that question head on, and I’m hoping that you’ll give me feedback on whether or not my answer makes sense to you. I’m truly looking for candor, advice and constructive criticism. So here it goes…

TransAccel Group is, first and foremost, a management consulting firm. We help organizations improve their performance by analyzing existing organizational problems and developing plans for improvement.

Today, every business change has an information systems component. So we focus our efforts on Information Technology (IT) organizations because of our firm belief that a company can only progress as fast as its IT systems and organizational capability allow.

Our ultimate goal is to help IT mature: develop, grow, and become more efficient and effective. An IT organization with mature capabilities can better support change while one with immature capabilities can and will hinder it.

Since maturing an organization requires extra hands, we also provide the thinkers and doers to help with implementation…what we refer to as the “capacity for change” hence the name of our blog.

What we don’t do is build and implement technology solutions…although we could if you asked nicely.

While we have a list of services that we’re working on defining in more detail, our approach varies by organization and situation.

Now I’m looking for a few brave souls who will tell me they still don’t get it…

Alas, the rumor is true; IT as we know it is done. Today IT is evolving into something else, and, as with all transitions, it sucks. Yes, I said “sucks” —because that is generally how most people feel about change, and this is particularly true when there is no clear destination or roadmap of how to get there.

Here is what we know for sure: IT’s core stock in trade can no longer be solely fixing or building things, given the surfeit of quality managed service providers that can do the fixin’ 24/7. And, with the advent of the “cloud” (you may have hoped this would drift away…but it’s here to stay) access to constantly updated information and customizable applications is just a pass code away.

Today IT is becoming an entire business within a business. Much like an R&D department, we are expected to conduct research, discovery, and testing that will lead to business solutions. These solutions will be either at our customers’ explicit direction, or, like Professor Marvel, we will peer into our crystal ball and see what they need before they even know they need it. In the past, we often had to “sell” our projects, but today IT is helping to frame company strategy and make the business case for resource allocation and marketplace investments, just like a true sales and marketing team. We are also in the delivery business. We must be the best at on-time delivery of solutions at minimal cost, and, maybe most importantly, engaging the internal customer to ensure that the solution is used and the maximum benefits are realized.

The good ole days of IT are gone. The new objective of placing IT at the hub of driving business is here, and most IT organizations are ill prepared for the shift in roles, focus, skills, knowledge and leadership this will entail. If IT leaders don’t step-up their skill-sets and those of their organization, there will be no more IT—it will simply be absorbed into the business organization. After all, why turn to the old IT when needs can be handled (and, in some cases better) by outsourced managed services and the “cloud”?

What to do? My advice is to focus on and invest in one skill right away. Communication. In my next blog I will outline the specific communication skills IT needs to use right now and those they should look for in new hires. Suffice it to say, that from my perspective, for IT to survive successfully within in the world of IT it has to have strong capabilities in communicating with customers, vendors (manage services) and maybe most importantly—within IT organization itself.

For now, IT is probably both Dorothy—who can see the home but isn’t entirely certain how to get there—and the Wizard—who has had the curtain thrown back to reveal a man frantically trying to control an entire enterprise through illusion. Neither is an envious place to be, lost and unable to do what you did well for so long. Just the same, there is only one path and that is straight into organizational change with smarts, heart and courage. The road of change may not be yellow or brick, but it is definitely time to get on with it, ruby slippers or not.