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You thought it was a good idea. In fact, you KNOW it was a good idea. So why was everyone so upset with you for ___________ (fill in your own most recent failed change here: redoing the training, rebuilding the display, introducing new pricing, creating a new management position, etc.)? Sound familiar? Most everyone who’s been in the workplace a year or more has at least one example of a great idea that failed, or that didn’t have the level of success they were hoping for. At Zingerman’s, we’ve found that, often as not, good ideas fail not because they aren’t good, but because the process used to implement them is flawed. To tackle that challenge, we’ve developed a recipe for change that has greatly improved our success rate.

Change Comfort Quotient
Are you someone who loves change? Someone who thrives on the excitement of tackling something new, perhaps unexpected? Or are you someone who hates change? Do you prefer to stay with the tried and true, even when you know it’s not working so well? Most people fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, and it’s safe to say that almost everyone is more enthusiastic about change when the change is their own idea, and less enthusiastic if they feel the change is being imposed on them — whether by circumstances or by other people.

Change is a fact of business life. Even those of us who would like to keep things “just the way they are” don’t have that luxury. The economy heats up but then cools off. New competitors enter the market. Long-time customers move away. Some suppliers add fuel surcharges; others go out of business. Employees quit at inconvenient times. Committed employees are looking for new challenges and suggest improvement projects they’d like to undertake. And then there are the changes that we initiate as we seek ways to improve our food quality, our service quality, and our financial results.

Several years ago, we realized that if we did a better job of managing change, we could positively impact all three of Zingerman’s bottom lines. So we picked the brain of ZingTrain’s co-managing partner, Stas’ Kazmierski, who’d spent many years as an organizational change consultant in the corporate world, to come up with a “recipe” for effective change that we began teaching throughout our organization.

The recipe itself is simple, but mastering it does take time — as does learning any skill. But having worked with the recipe for the past five years, we’ve found that it really works — if it is followed. Just as with a recipe from a cookbook, if you don’t follow it precisely, your results may turn out differently than you envisioned. This recipe works for changes of all sizes, and we teach it throughout our organization to front-line staff as well as to managers.

Bottom-Line Change: Zingerman’s Recipe
1. Create a clear and compelling purpose for the change. Quite simply, why is this change needed? The reasons for the change need to be clear and compelling to those who will be impacted by the change. As the person initiating the change, you already think it’s a good idea. But people can’t read your mind and not everyone is persuaded by the same types of data. The first step of bottom-line change is all about building a case that will convince the people who need convincing, and you do this by looking at the change from their perspective. What’s in it for them? How will the change positively impact the things that matter to them? Some data are quite objective: sales improvements, cost reductions, fewer customer complaints, reduced injuries, etc. Other reasons for change may be more subjective — improved quality of work life, less stress, reduced competition for shared resources, etc. The key is to figure out who will be impacted by the change you’re considering (i.e., anyone who will be impacted by it and thus has a hand in the ultimate success of the change) and then figure out which reasons for change will be most compelling to each audience.

2. Develop a documented vision of success and get leadership alignment on that vision. What will things look like when the change is implemented and all is going well? Painting an inspiring but strategically sound picture of a particular point in time in the future helps get people on board. Who gets to decide on the vision? That depends on the change being proposed and your organization’s decision-making structure. Most of the time we practice “consultative decision-making.” The manager or leader has the ultimate say but seeks and seriously considers input from others in developing the vision.

3. Engage a microcosm to figure out who needs to know about the change and how to get that information out to them. Once you have completed Steps One and Two, you’ll probably feel ready to just go ahead and do it. But it’s worth taking a couple of additional steps. In Step Three, you take the time to ask a cross section of the people who will be impacted a couple of questions: a) Who needs to know about this? And b) what’s the best way to communicate the information to them? Different people have different views of the organization. Getting help from people whose view is different than your own helps make sure that you’ve covered all the bases.

4. Officially roll out your vision and develop an action plan. In this step, you follow the advice from Step Three and communicate with the people who will be impacted by the change. This communication will be most effective if it is two way: you’re sharing the reasons for the change and your vision of success, while soliciting input on what needs to happen to make the change successful. Basically, you’re asking people to help you develop your action plan and assign themselves a role in implementing the change. When people take responsibility for helping make the change happen, they are active participants in the change — not unempowered “victims.”

5. Implement the change. In this step, you follow the action plan that was developed in Step Four. When all of the previous steps have been followed, the organization’s reaction to Step Five is usually: What, haven’t we already done this? If enough information is shared throughout the process, there are no surprises once the change is implemented.

Although there is more up-front work involved in Bottom-Line Change than there is in “just doing it,” it has been our experience that the overall time and effort required to implement change is reduced. Doing the up-front work greatly reduces the damage control that is needed when a change is hastily implemented and encounters strong resistance.

Small Bites
When people first learn about Bottom-Line Change, they assume it makes sense only for big organizational changes. But it is best to practice the recipe on smaller changes, until the steps start to come naturally. Here’s an example.

Kate Peck, ZingTrain’s administrative assistant, was charged with reorganizing our office supplies storage area. She came up with a plan for where things should go based on the supplies we use most frequently and where space was available in our new file cabinets and shelving units. But instead of just moving everything around as she saw fit, Katie took the time to send out a brief email outlining what she was planning to put where and why (the compelling reasons for change and her vision — Steps 1 and 2). She asked for feedback on her vision as well as who else needed to know about the changes and how to tell them (Step 3). One piece of feedback she got was the suggestion to put a diagram on the cabinets so that anyone who’s helping out in the ZingTrain office can see at a glance what is stored inside, and she included that in her final plan (Step 4). When Katie actually made the changes (Step 5), none of us lost any time looking for letterhead, envelopes or file folders.

Maggie Bayless is the managing partner of ZingTrain, which is the consulting arm of Zingerman’s, the specialty food retailer in Ann Arbor, Mich. If you have specific topics you would like to see addressed, please send your suggestions to Maggie at mbayless@zingermans.com.