It’s time for a better approach to change management in marketing

Marketing teams are constantly making changes. However, if you want to make big changes in marketing, such as making more efficient use of your technology stack, reducing time to market, or improving campaign results, a concerted effort to communicate and implement change is required.

In the autumn presentation MarTech conference, Melissa Reeve discussed the “middle-out” strategy, a way to manage successful change in marketing.

As humans, we sometimes make decisions without considering the full consequences of our decisions. For example, says Reeve, many marketing organizations implement marketing technology without thinking about how to manage change. This leads to low adoption and usage rates.

In smaller organizations, change management is often done ad hoc or not at all. Change management initiatives include planning how change will be introduced, communicated and who will be affected. New skills may even be required.

Examining common change management frameworks

A hallmark of change management is that it also actively manages those who oppose the change.

All change management frameworks show a series of steps for organizations to follow. These help organizations manage change effectively.

One of the most popular frameworks is Leading Change by Harvard professor John Kotter. It outlines eight steps to help organizations pilot programs, consolidate their early successes, and begin building momentum for change.

The ADKAR method focuses on helping people understand the need for change. It helps people understand what (ie, what changes are happening) and how the change will affect them personally.

The McKinsey 7S system has existed since the 1970s. It helps organizations think about the different areas of the organization that are affected and helps them work towards alignment. This is useful when scaling organizations, for example if you are moving from 50 to 500 people.

Kurt Lewin has a very simple three-step process for understanding and implementing organizational change. It requires organizations to unfreeze their current way of doing things. Then they communicate and practice the changes, then refreeze the new way of working, codify it, and implement this new way of changing.

But according to the Harvard Business Review, only 12% of change initiatives meet or exceed expectations. McKinsey and Company reports that only one in eight change initiatives produce lasting results.

Why failed change is such a problem for marketing organizations, Reeve explains in the clip below:

Reeve says questions to consider include:

• How do you handle change in your organization?
• Do you have change management frameworks?
• Do you introduce changes in a systematic way, do you think holistically?
• Or are you relying on good intentions and luck to implement and communicate your change?

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A different approach to change management

The frameworks we explored earlier, such as the ADKAR or CADR framework, are usually labeled as “bottom-up” or “top-down”. Reeve says that top-down change initiatives tend to be overly simplistic. They lack the nuance they need to really deal with some of the issues facing the people who do this work.

Bottom-up change initiatives lack the perspective of linking change to business results. Major organizational changes fundamentally require knowledge and experience in the middle of the hierarchy.

It turns out, Reeve says, that the most successful transformations leverage the collective wisdom of middle managers and teams. These middle managers have enough contact with leaders to understand the larger goals of the organization. They have sufficient knowledge of operations to correctly identify key areas for improvement.

However, middle managers are also far enough removed from day-to-day operations that they are not constrained by the way things have always been done.

4 requirements for a medium change strategy

Powerful buy-in

Senior management support is critical to the success of the middle strategy. Executive support underscores the importance of change and provides critical visibility. Without that support from senior management, Reeve said, middle managers may not have the authority or resources they need to make meaningful changes.

Selection

The next step in the strategy is what Reeve says she likes to call selection. This means identifying and selecting proven performers who demonstrate a strong commitment to the initiative.

“These are people who lean in,” she said. “They have the necessary skills and attributes to bridge the gap between strategy and execution. They typically have a track record of consistently delivering results and a proven ability to thrive in ambiguous environments. They have resourcefulness, creativity, can think outside the box, and have strong communication and collaboration skills, which are of course so essential when implementing change.”

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The third component is called stretch.

“Stretch encourages people to cultivate and present bold ideas that can fundamentally change the operational dynamics of organizations and help propel them to greater success,” said Reeve. “To achieve this, leaders must recognize and validate the concerns raised by these middle managers. They are often dismissed but can provide valuable insights into potential obstacles and challenges.”

Support

The fourth component of the medium strategy is support. “Middle managers play a key role in implementing change in an organization and must be adequately supported in terms of focus and authority to act,” she said. “These managers must have the necessary financial, human and technological resources to implement the change.”

Organizations can help middle managers by clearly explaining the vision and objectives of the change. They should also offer training and professional development.

A case study of middle management of change

T-Mobile wanted to transition from a highly complex site to one that truly prioritized customer needs. Management sponsored a dedicated cross-functional team to redesign the experience. Reeve said management gave a very simple charter: Do what it takes to shake up the world.

“The team was focused. They were empowered. There were no limits placed on them. The team had to narrow this great vision down to three goals. They decided to enable easy discovery, sales and service.”

They needed the website to be simple and straightforward, and they needed to radically rebrand T-Mobile as an “uncarrier.”

Highly satisfied website users increased from 10% to 50%. Ease of use jumped from 22% to 57%. And the shopping experience has improved by 50%.

5 practices to improve the outcome of change management

After discussing the disadvantages of top-down and bottom-up strategies and the components of a middle strategy, Reeve reviews six practices that can support change initiatives in your organization.

According to Harvard research, there is a direct correlation between the number of these 6 practices you implement and your success rate.

1. Invest in change. In the Harvard study, nearly all of the failed change initiatives were underfunded or funded through cost-cutting measures. That alone doesn’t break it.

2. Don’t think of change as a project to be completed. Think of it as healthy eating. You have to keep doing it to see the benefits.

3. Create a sense of shared responsibility. No one should be able to point at a person and say, “That change is their job, not mine.”

4. Manage the amount of changes. Research conducted by Harvard showed that changing more than two primary routines at the same time dramatically increased the likelihood of failure.

5. Support bold ambitions. Use those bold ambitions for bold visions to unify, to motivate. And as part of that, control your opponents.

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