Large scale change management inevitably involves technology implementations. The technical teams are very often resourced with expert people, highly skilled in their field, at the innovative edge of getting things done. In the current climate, getting more done means greater efficiency, usually via automation (see: https://www.agenciachange.com/post/big-change-and-what-it-means-for-all-other-changes).
To gain the efficiencies and cost effectiveness promised by technology change, a deep dive into the organisations systems and integrations is performed. This means the technical experts connecting with business people who know and manage the operation of the systems and who can articulate the impacts of changing particular elements.
Our highly skilled technical team is there to focus on the technology. For anyone who has worked alongside highly specialised teams like this, they are a joy to work with, often with an easy, irreverent sense of humour, and a level of proficiency that can be relied on absolutely. By the nature of the work involved, technicians can be drawn to roles where continuity of the environment is high and logic prevails. This may mean a preference for working alone or in a controlled, systematic way. It may mean the 'forced fun' of team building activities won't be their cup of Friday-afternoon-banter.
Why are we saying technicians like alone time? Among other things great technicians analyse problems and data deeply, they develop new thinking by researching detailed specs, running mini-tests or thought experiments and they document specialist work in a way that others can understand it. Those who are good at it choose to work in this way because it drives their interest. They like the technical work and need an environment that enables them to keep pursuing the idea, problem, solution, bug etc until they have a handle on how to deal with it.
Our business people are often coming from a completely different perspective. They're driven by operational concerns and the technical implications may be invisible to them. For example, in a peak selling period there simply will not be any non-essential system outages. Business experts work on people networks where the currency is interpersonal skills such as negotiation and reassurance.
In addition, changes involving greater technology automation and improved efficiency can generate fears of job loss and irrelevance. Business experts who know the way systems were originally designed may face re-learning and many hours of effort over and above their present workload. They may be approaching the change with negativity or open hostility.
When working with technicians, timing can be everything. In my experience, technical teams will communicate well and directly as soon as they trust you're not going to interrupt or distract them from something that needs their continuous attention.
The research of author and trainer Malcolm Dawes talks about Amanda, a technical expert in sales forecasting. She appeared to others to be aloof, unapproachable and a bit intimidating. People felt like they weren't intelligent enough to discuss work with her. Amanda found the hardest part of her job was dealing with people.
After her team understood how she preferred to communicate, they recognised Amanda was task-driven; and not many of the other assumptions they had made about her were true. For Amanda it required conscious effort to break out of her deep thinking and deal with people because she actually put a lot of effort into it, relating to people on an individual level and engaging in whatever they wanted to talk about. For Amanda that took concentration.
Technology projects connect groups of unique people in distinctive ways.
Your change manager is well-equipped to understand individual preferences and connect teams together in a way that creates the right balance of technical input and business drivers. Through stakeholder analysis change managers help to understand the best ways to deal with each decision maker, and create an engagement plan that works for technology change.
Leaders of technology change need to encourage the emotional intelligence that recognises and celebrates differences, connects people and allows the team to work with their strengths. This may involve some creative solutions, but better team dynamics will lead directly to better collaboration, and much better project outcomes.
For more on change leadership: https://www.agenciachange.com/blog
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