Situation: A healthcare organization?s customer service ratings were going down. It was determined that a LEAN Kaizen Event should be implemented to resolve the issue. The CEO of the organization was anxious and wanted the LEAN project to start immediately. Planning was quickly implemented and a series of lunch-and-learn meetings were held to make sure the management team was fully aware of the project and the steps to be taken.
One week before the LEAN Kaizen Event was to occur, a new manager was hired for the customer service area that was the focus of the Event. The new manager?s behavior during the Kaizen Event was passive-aggressive. The Event continued and was relatively successful.
Question: Would the use of the ADKAR Change Management Model have helped?
The ADKAR Model was developed by Jeff Hiatt, CEO of Prosci Change Management. This Change Management Model is designed to assist individuals going through a change to be successful. When organizations employ this 5 step model, change is more successful.
Step 1: Awareness Of The Need For Change
Understanding the reasons why change is necessary is a key factor in any successful change process. Knowing the underlying reasons for the necessity of change is critical. Full disclosure and planned communication is the essential first step.
In the case of our new manager, understanding why the change was necessary may not have been communicated in a way that she could understand. In addition, since she was new, she did not have a complete understanding of the current organizational situation.
Step 2: Desire To Participate In And Support The Change
In this step, the individual must reach the point where they can fully commit to the project and support the change. This can only happen if the individual fully understands the need for change as communicated in Step 1. The organization must create the desire in the individual to want to contribute to the change process.
The new manager felt threatened and did not see why the change was being made before she had an opportunity to work with the staff herself. Her passive-aggressive behavior could have been eliminated by using these first two steps.
Step 3: Knowledge On How To Change
This step involves normal training and education activities. By providing a variety of methods to the end user, the organization can ensure that each individual know what they need to do to change, and what to do once the change has occurred.
Our new manager received the same level of training as other team members and should have had the requisite knowledge of how to make the change in her behavior.
Step 4: Ability To Implement Required Skills And Behaviors
This fourth step is to actually practice the skills and behaviors that will be required to ensure the change occurs and is successful. The organization must provide the support to enable individuals to get comfortable with the new processes and procedures.
Once again, our new manager received the same training and opportunities to practice as the entire Kaizen Event team.
Step 5: Reinforcement To Sustain The Change
It?s not enough to implement new changes, it?s important that the organization ensure that the change is sustained through positive feedback, rewards, recognition, and performance measurements.
The organization did provide positive feedback and organization-wide recognition for the team. The new manager was included as a positive contributor and member of the team. Whether these changes were sustained it is doubt.
Conclusion: The ADKAR change management model would have been a useful tool for the LEAN Kaizen Event Team to employ to ensure that the change was successful. For more information about how to implement the ADKAR Change Management model in your organization, give me a call.
