Give me a sequence, some boxes, a template on steps, lots of arrows and a PowerPoint, and I will create a change management model for you. Bronze, no thrills. Silver, you’ll get animations. Gold, as silver but we will customize it with your logo so it looks as kind of semi-invented by you. And you get the binder.
Also, as an extra, I will throw in a meta-analysis of change management models published by a prestigious academic institution of your choice, preferably American (those Europeans don’t understand) that will justify the customised method. I promise, it will. In fact, this is so easy, that is why we offer you that as a throwaway bonus. Also some handy references about McKinsey view of the world , or at least a couple of paragraphs starting with ‘A McKinsey study showed…”
I also can assure you that it will have similar hypnotic powers to Kotter’s eight steps change model. But more technicolour. Like rabbits in front of your car lights, your audience will dwell in the mesmerizing wonder of the model. Or you’ll get your money back. You will not have to think, just apply the boxes and print lots of powerpoints.
You should not care about the solidity of any science behind it (social sciences, network sciences etc), and that is a requirement, because as soon as you start caring, and digging, you will discover that the solidity of the model is one of a cream cake. And that’s not good. OK, for the model. It’s good for the cakes.
And, another thing. Our latest version 3.0 comes with choices. You can chose the number of change steps. 8 steps will put you in parity with Kotter’s, and 5 with McKinsey’s model. Just saying.
A disclaimer, I am afraid. None of the versions come with stupid questions such as ‘why on earth do we do this?’, ‘what is that we are changing?’ or ‘what happens after the PowerPoints have been displayed? Infuriating, distracting and unhelpful, we have gotten rid of them.
The versatile model that we will deliver to you, can be used in all sorts of situations: transformations, change management, management of change [get it?], culture change, process change, systems change, large scale, small scale. Even change of the Guard.
As per behavioural change, we shall leave it to your imagination after the PowerPoints have been deployed. But it should be pretty obvious that if you have the boxes and the arrows in the right place, behaviours will miraculously change. OK, the latter is still in beta, so no guarantee.
Beware of people such as Leandro Herrero of The Chalfont Project and Viral Change™ who will tell you that this is all bullshit, that the mechanical models of change cannot be applied to the current world, and that you will find out, at a cost, that all those change models never get you to the Land of Milk and Honey. Not only because there is no Milk and no Honey (small detail that did not deter the biblical Israelites) but because Change, big C, small c, can’t be obtained with Ikea instructions type of methods. Ignore him.
The offers expires soon.