"I hear what you're saying…"
You know what is coming. It's a 'but'. You have probably heard it many many times and mostly in relation to change. It is often when you are trying to introduce something new, maybe a better way of doing something, or a way of getting better productivity. The solution you are providing is irresistible and then comes the reason why it won't work. As a TMC we hear it a lot including the variant that is "that may work for other companies but we are different" or "sounds good in theory but our processes are different" or possibly it's just a simple "I hear you but I am not listening".
Why is that? After all, we all now know the only constant in life is change and resisting it rarely has a positive result.
There are, however, different levels of change and the emotional impact they have can be astounding. These tend to be things like desk space and where you sit (anyone tried going to hot desks?) and the travel and expense policy. Probably one of the reasons for this is where you sit and the type of desk you get, along with the way you can travel, are often all part of the subtle hierarchy within companies. Good luck trying to change that!
Of course everything can be changed if it is managed in the right way and a lot of it will depend on effective communications. But I don't mean an email to a distribution list. I mean talking to people using out dated tools such as your voice. Discussing and debating the merits in a situation where you can read the non-verbal communication in order to understand the emotion. USING CAPITAL LETTERS is not expressing emotion but it will certainly close down communication pretty swiftly.
Making it work
So how do you engage with the key people? Isn't it different for the roles and positions that people have in the organisation? It is virtually impossible to answer that but there is a way of working out what would work for your organisation and it comes from a poem; Rudyard Kipling's 'Six Honest Serving Men' to be precise.
'I keep six honest serving-men,
They taught me all I knew,
Their names are What and Why and When,
And How and Where and Who.'
These simple six questions can often give clarity to complex questions, especially in relation to TMC changes and how to implement them.
Getting started
Let's take them one at a time starting with 'what?'. A seemingly simple question but one often overlooked. What is it you are trying to achieve from the change is a good starting point and will work at a variety of stakeholder levels. What a senior person in finance wants may not be the same as a traveller out on the road, but both are relevant and need to be explored. Finance may want to save money, HR may want better compliance and the traveller may just want a better way to book and all of these may form the basis of what a desired outcome may be. By finding out the 'what', a view on what the end goal looks like can be formed.
Next is 'why?' and this is where a lot of the objections will occur. "I like working this way, why change?", "why are we changing supplier?" 'why do I need authorisation?" and so it goes on. I would suggest that to get the most engagement at all levels it is important to be clear on the reasons why. It needs to be compelling, believable and stand up to scrutiny. Sometimes it is useful to target areas or even people that may be problematic and explain in detail why a change is happening and what the benefits are.
So the decision to change has been made and the reasoning behind it is clear, the next thing to be decided is 'when'. This could be the point that the project starts or could be the aimed-for conclusion, but either way it is understanding the amount of time that is available. This is critical for all of the questions that follow as the timescales and how ambitious they are will often dictate the amount of resources that will be required to achieve the goal and, if necessary, revise the target. It is useful at this stage to get senior level engagement as it may be necessary to move forward in the face of opposition.
How, where and who
The next three questions are really where the engagement to the wider audience to the project begins and will often be blended together.
Continued below
Change involves various stakeholders and questions so you need to be prepared ©DrAfter123/iStockWhen thinking about how a project is going to be implemented all affected areas need to be considered. There should be a detailed examination of the systems being used, the processes and the interdependencies across the business.
This final part is critical because changing one element may drastically affect something somewhere else without realising it, and when a change is taking place you want the positives to be seen rather than harking back to the good old days when everything worked brilliantly well (apparently!).
It's important to think broadly about 'who' because travel affects the actual traveller, of course, but it also affects the accounts team, IT, HR and all manner of other areas. Communication and 'who' does this will also be key to the levels of engagement.
Recently a buyer's CEO put out a video via the intranet that explained not only what was happening and the rationale behind it but also who needed to be involved and why it was important. This type of communication ensures that everyone in the organisation is clear that it is important and they need to get involved. It also helps to get buy-in across departments and helps the co-operation to achieve the objectives within the agreed timescales.
The next million dollar question is 'how?' This is the actual implementation phase and when examined it should be apparent what the identified pitfalls and barriers are. The 'how' is also dependent on the 'who' and vice versa but that doesn't matter as long as both are addressed. To a certain extent the incoming TMC will be advising on this section because they will be familiar with what works and what doesn't, and they should be able to ensure that any transition takes place smoothly.
The 'how' is also the area where conflicts may arise, especially as changing the TMC or the way travel is booked is unlikely to bring in additional resources. It may mean the in-house booking team is dis-banded which will then create an emotional response. Referring back to the 'why' are will help here as this should be clear and used to overcome objections.
The final part of Kipling's poem is 'where'. For me this may sit at the beginning as in 'where do we start?' or at the end when determining which part of the company implements first. It might mean a pilot or a parallel run, or it could mean a total switch over.
You are probably thinking all the questions are interchangeable and have your own idea of what is the best approach. The aim is to provide a framework; a method of breaking down a large task into smaller manageable chunks.
Sometimes when faced with a problem finding out where to begin is often the challenge. It is all very well seeking the light at the end of the tunnel if you are struggling to find the tunnel in the first place. Kipling provides us with six key questions and if you can answer most of them, or at least see where the problems might occur, you will be well on the way to solving the problem.