How much change is too much?

According to Gartner, the average employee expected 10 enterprise changes in 2022. 😳

To put that in perspective, in 2016, the average employee expected 2!

What.is.going.on?

Add to that:

• Reductions in workforce

• Restructuring for [insert flashy reason here]

• Hybrid work

• New product launches

• M&A Integration

And maybe it’s not so crazy that Susan has started rage-applying for other roles on the weekends!

Even in the best work-life integration scenario, there are limits to what people can handle.

How can you identify if your team (or org) is dealing with change fatigue?

It’s kind of an art and science because no one likes to admit they’re experiencing challenges.

In my experience here are some manifestations I’ve seen (in no particular order):

• exhaustion - depleted energy (physically + mentally)

• being forgetful

• cynicism, apathy

• loss of enjoyment of work

• work avoidance (lots of sick days, headaches, & summer Fridays after summer is over lol)

• alienation or detachment (may present at pessimistic)

• reduced performance or productivity

• irritability

• change in appetite/sleep/etc

Your Tactical Guide

Let’s assume you’re a great leader. You’re already deploying empathy, courage, integrity, influence, focus, & servant leadership. You also have a great team of folks you don’t want to lose.

Let’s walk through a hypothetical situation of an organization that doesn’t have external clients or contracts it has to fulfill.

Here’s a pro tip, don’t start with change management.

1. Treat Change Fatigue as a Business Issue

This is critical. In the same way you would treat growth, revenue, or cost savings as a business initiative, you have to treat change fatigue with the same urgency. This means there’s probably going to be a business case and investment to address this. If your org is already tapped out, it may be a good idea NOT to give them something else to do.

• Can you bring in outside consultants?

• Can you take people off low-priority projects and create a temporary project team to address this? The key is to staff a cross-functional team with A+ resources - the same you would a high-priority initiative.

Next, try to identify the root cause. Use any problem-solving framework you fancy to structure problem analysis, test assumptions, make informed decisions (data is always nice), and implement a series of continuous improvements that will give you indications you’re moving in the right direction.

I like design thinking but feel free to try out DMAIC, PDCA, or Cynefin.

2. Use Portfolio Management as a mechanism to cancel unnecessary projects

When orgs don’t have a PMO, there’s typically not a good understanding of how many initiatives are in progress at one time.

This means projects that aren’t that important are using our precious people’s time and attention.

So, when a priority 2 project is thrown at the team, there's no clear call to scrap that lower-priority project, and now they're stuck trying to show progress on everything.

Here’s how to get a handle on WIP (work in progress):

• Decide what you care about for the year. Pick 2-5 themes max. Build a Google sheet based on the Six Sigma project prioritization matrix. Don’t overcomplicate this. Here are a few options that would probably work for most orgs:

  • Increase Revenue

  • Cost Savings

  • Retain Talent

  • Improve Market Share

• At a leadership level, have every department head list every single initiative, or project (whatever you call them) in their area and score them based on the criteria provided in the prioritization matrix. Every project should link to a one-pager. I like the project canvas template but feel free to use whatever works in your org.

• Create a cut-off score. Everything that doesn’t make the score should be canceled or deferred.

• Based on what’s left, we’re going to do some proper capacity planning, resource allocation, and utilization.

3. Deploy best practices in resource allocation and utilization

This could be its own newsletter issue.

If you don’t do this as a company, please hire or bring in outside expertise.

(Remember, everyone is already burned out.)

A few definitions:

• Capacity planning involves determining the overall capacity or capability of an organization to handle its workload and meet its objectives. It is a strategic process that looks at the organization's long-term goals and forecasts the resources needed to achieve them. Capacity planning helps in identifying potential bottlenecks, making informed expansion decisions, and aligning resource availability with business growth.

• Resource allocation is the tactical process of assigning specific resources to various projects, tasks, or activities within the organization. It involves distributing resources, such as people, equipment, funds, and time, based on project priorities, deadlines, and requirements. The objective of resource allocation is to optimize the use of available resources to ensure that projects are completed efficiently and within budget, while also taking into account the broader organizational priorities and capacity constraints.

• Resource utilization measures how effectively and efficiently resources are being used to complete tasks or projects. It is a performance metric that evaluates the percentage of time or capacity that resources are actively engaged in productive work compared to their total availability.

TLDR - you need data to make better decisions here. In a future issue (if there’s interest) I’ll drop a playbook.

You may be able to hack something using the code converter in ChatGPT and Excel, or maybe you can pay someone on Fiverr to build a spreadsheet for you.

If you’re serious though, you’re going to invest in tooling that will handle this with project portfolio reporting. This should NOT be a manual exercise.

Here is a subset of metrics that will start prompting the right questions:

• Capacity Utilization Rate: Measures the percentage of available capacity that is being utilized to meet the organization's demands. It helps identify if the organization is overcapacity or under capacity.

• Resource utilization rate: calculates the percentage of time or capacity team members spend on productive work. It indicates how effectively the team is utilizing its resources and can identify potential bottlenecks or over utilization.

• Work Item Distribution: This metric shows how work items are distributed across team members. It can reveal potential imbalances in resource allocation and enable teams to redistribute tasks for better efficiency.

• The team stability index calculates the consistency of team composition over time. A stable team with consistent members may have better performance and resource utilization.

• Resource Allocation Forecast Accuracy: This metric evaluates the accuracy of resource allocation predictions. It helps in improving future resource planning based on historical data.

• Resource Availability: Track the availability of team members and other resources to ensure that projects are not overloading individuals or teams.

4. Invest in and distribute change leadership

Only after the steps above should we bring in change management.

There’s not a good understanding of organizational capacity and the best utilization models.

This could look like a change management organization (CMO) or a new capability nested under your current PMO. You can also bring in a team of outside consultants for a scoped and time-boxed engagement but definitely think about how you fold this practice into your org long-term.

When change management comes into a well-functioning environment, it’s absolutely an asset to the business. It will make transitions (like M&A or restructuring) smoother, increase employee engagement, reduce resistance to change, improve communication, mitigate risks, ensure quicker adoption, foster an environment of continuous improvement, and enablement of the business to shift based on market shifts, customer demands, and industry trends more effectively.

Most importantly it will ensure everyone in your organization is heard, included, and feels motivated to work toward the common goals that support the company’s vision.

When change fatigue kicks off with a change management solution, it ends up feeling like just "one more thing on our plate," and eventually, this can lead to people getting fed up and leaving (attrition).

Start at the root cause.

Curated Resources Referenced:

• Project Prioritization Matrix (I’ve been using this youtube video for years)

• The Phoneix Project (Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, & George Spafford - Get a handle on WIP

• Gartner Research “How to Identify, Fix, and Prevent Change Fatigue”

• Project Canvas Template

How to Support

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