13. Change Management, The Japanese Way

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Hello and welcome to this episode of Ways to Change Your Workplace with myself Prina Sha where we uncover ways to make your workplace a much better place to be. Changes are all far too common in the workplace nowadays. And because of that, I want to talk to you about successful change management the Japanese way. You may have had to focus on change management on the fly when things really hit the fan. As we now focus on recovery or new ways of working, let us not forget the importance of planned change management. That's a really different thing. There are many statistics which state that many change projects fail due to a lack of communication, a lack of buy-in, and a lack of support. You have probably experienced failed change projects over some time in your career. I'm not gonna label this point, but instead I want to explain a new concept to you. An ex-colleague explained the Japanese concept of nemawashi to me long ago, and I want to share it with you now. So nemawashi in Japanese means an informal process of quietly laying the foundation for some proposed change or project by talking to the people concerned, gathering support and feedback, and so on. It is considered an important element in any major change. Before any formal steps are taken, successful nemewashi enables changes to be carried out with the consent of all times. Now nemewashi literally translates as going around the roots from the root which means neh, and mawasu to go around something. Apologies for my pronunciation if nemwashi is not how you pronounce it. Correct me if I am wrong. I will continue to pronounce it as that. So Nemawashi's original meaning was literal digging around the roots of a tree to prepare it for a transplant. This process involves bringing the dirt from a new location and introducing it to the tree before the transplant so that the tree can grow accustomed to the new environment before it even gets there. What a beautiful analogy is that for change management. So I've simplified it for you. I have simplified it to meeting before the meeting and then meeting after the meeting. I have applied this process many, many aspects myself, one of which is in change and culture optimization projects that I have supported my clients with. So here are some useful pointers from what I have learned. I want to share with you what Nemwashi process is not, first off. Nemowashi process is not meetings for meeting's sake and wasting people's time. It is not to bombard stakeholders with a one-sided case. It is not to tell others how things are going to be. It is not to manage unplanned and on the fly change. What Nemowashi as a process is, is to meet with key stakeholders and affected parties beforehand, before you have any approvals, before you've got any memos written, before any of that. In order to firstly set the context. In order to be prepared with a set of strategically crafted questions and information that you can share with your key stakeholders, so that you can gain feedback as well as a buy-in pre-launch of your change. The process for you is to try and truly listen, to apply active listening, to possibly then go back to your drawing board and change your change proposal based on the feedback that you've learned. So, bonus tip on change engagement in relation to this is once you make your merry way through your change project, remember to keep your stakeholders briefed and to celebrate your successes throughout your project. Pick the low-hanging fruit, the quick wins. To build momentum and to build awareness, you truly honestly have to communicate these little mini wins that you have. Now, for the eagle-eared listeners, you heard that there was a latter part of what I said in meeting after the meeting. So here I've used direct examples from projects that I have either worked on and clients that I have supported. So meeting after the meeting. So now, whatever you've worked on for your change project is complete. This is where the meeting after the meeting is a really important step. Your change project is now complete and you have kept your stakeholders abreast of the progress. And you are now seeing the light at the end of that change tunnel. What most change projects seem to fail on is this final stage of reflection. Working in a busy environment is easy to move on to the next project, but I highly, highly, highly state that you hold on. So you're meeting number one. I'm calling it the post-mortem. This should be a debrief from the project team's perspective on your lessons learned. What went well, what didn't work well, what suggestions for improvement should ideally be documented. And everyone on the project team should have a say. And the ground rules for this session should be that there'll be no judgment and complete honesty. Only then will you hear the thoughts of your project team and what went well, what didn't go well, and what really should be changed for next time. Meeting number two should be your stakeholder briefing, and that's meeting with the people that you met with initially, you know, to gain buy-in. So this is essential to close the loop on the project for yourself and for your professional brand. The content of this meeting should contain learnings from your post-mortem meeting, you know, the things that you can share. You won't be able to share everything, of course. It should also contain questions for your stakeholders on what they thought worked, what they thought didn't work, and what they reckon could be improved. Again, this feedback should be documented in your lessons learned document to close the project. And then your final communications. Often change projects fizzle into the void and no one hears about them officially. Therefore, the corporate whispers, the corporate gossip starts to begin. So to hold that, a simple piece of communication, ideally verbally, by your change champion or the CEO, whoever your biggest stakeholder is, should be held. In this final communication, the content should contain details of the project close, the wins that you've had, the learnings, in terms of whatever you can share. And depending on your company culture, of transparency and honest communication, you could ask people for their thoughts on the change. And you guessed it? Document them. So Nemuwashi, I have broken it down into three steps for you the pre-meeting, during your project, and the meeting after the project as well. Here's two happy employees, great leaders, good company cultures, and good change projects, where they actually don't fail. Let me know how you go after you've applied this methodology. If you want to meet great thinkers who stand against crappy workplace cultures, lousy leaders and toxic teams, then you need to join the Ways to Change Your Workplace Facebook group, which is linked in today's show notes. I will see you in the next episode. Bye for now.