Kevin Hofer, Director of Inventory Management for Sears Holdings, wins the award for best presentation analogy at The Premier Business Leadership Series. He compared the change management around Sears Holdings’ implementation of a merchandise planning system to his process for how he successfully potty trained his 18-month-old son…in one day. As a mother of two, I say this makes him pretty credible.
“If you can potty train a kid in a day, you have the skills needed to deploy a merchandise planning application,” Hofer said, jokingly. “It’s all about change management.” Hofer suggested these five steps to follow:
- Establish the goal: Hofer had an 18-month old with new baby due in two months and decided they really needed to get the first one out of diapers.
Translation: Understand what you need (Avoid cost of the diapers, the hassle, the mess. Establish ad hoc reporting, enable faster decisions, avoid having to get information from multiple systems. Also, quantify the desired benefits: improved margins, increased sales, etc.) - Identify your key stakeholders and gain alignment. “Everybody’s generally aligned on the goal, but not everyone is in the same state of readiness,” Hofer said. (Hofer had a psych class in college, he was prepared, right? His wife wasn’t as ready, but agreed to try: “She said, ‘Hey if you think you can do it, I’m all for it!’”)
The stakeholders that are more ready can function as sponsors. Prepare for the skeptics. - Assess the readiness of stakeholders, end users, skills, the organization’s maturity, the level of understanding—and develop the plan to execute. Within this step:
- Identify the tools and the prototypes needed for demonstrations (here Hofer projects a photo of two baby dolls, which he claimed weren’t needed for potty training demonstration because, well, he’s a man and he has a son).
- Minimize distractions.
- Develop rewards: And remember, benefits aren’t the same to stakeholders as the end users. Mom and dad save money, reduce hassle, eliminate the mess; the child gets to make mommy and daddy happy, gets a feeling of accomplishment, and some short-term rewards (I heard one woman behind me whisper “M&Ms!”).
- Identify adoption agents: some of the best adoption agents are the people who teach others about the system.
- Clear the decks of other activities—this is really hard to do, but very important, and management needs to help.
- Hype the big event: Make a big deal about the project—but remember, this has to come from management, not the end users, and not the vendor. Praise means a lot more coming from mom and dad.
- Deploy the new system: Reward any and all accomplishments, practice positive reinforcement until behavior is established. Then repeat, repeat, repeat. Hype for the next 2 weeks. Stock up early on M&Ms.
