Transcript

TIM MAIRS:

I think there's probably a couple of things that really define effective change to me. One is ownership. So it's not just something that is owned by the people who want to see the change happen, it's something that other people are bought into, it's something that other people feel that they've had an opportunity to structure.

I think a key part to that is communication. So being able to have those difficult conversations, but in doing that, make people aware of the need for change, and constantly updating them on an awful lot of issues, particularly, sometimes, the really minor hygiene factors. Because at the end of the day, sometimes the biggest things that concern us are those things that affect our everyday life. Where does my desk sit? Where am I getting changed in the morning? Which station or office am I going to work from? So constant communication. I don't think there's any such thing as overcommunication.

And the last big bit for me is stickability, that when we decide to change, we have to be disciplined about that, and we have to see that change through. And an awful lot of change processes, I think, fail because we just lose energy after the initial burst.

So I could well believe that statistic. I think because sometimes- or I'd say in a lot of cases- we don't do the legwork at the start. So we don't really research what the problems are and we don't really effectively research what the best solutions are. I think, secondly, we then fail to communicate the reasons for change, and ensure a really broad base of buy-in from people. And I think, thirdly, we fail to have the discipline, then, around delivering those changes. Sometimes that involves governance, and it involves things like paperwork, and it involves discipline that the likes of the PRINCE2 project management process brings for us.

Often, dynamic people and dynamic organisations like policing tend to be very uncomfortable with that kind of structure and governance, but it's absolutely critical when you're trying to deliver quite complex change over a sustained period of time. And I think, often, that lack of attention to discipline is where a lot of us fall down.

Absolutely not. And to me, some of the greatest change leaders have been people at all levels within the organisation. And I think it's a critical point to make that, actually, when you get into your process of change, you absolutely have to have people bought in at every single level. And I think you really see success in an organisation when change is led from the front line.

And particularly in policing, we have leaders at every level. When you turn up at the scene of a road traffic collision and it's in chaos, you're a leader. You're leading people at that stage. And people look to you for guidance and for direction. And it's those sort of skills that we need to harness to actually drive change at the front line.

I think when people in an organisation feel that change is something being done to them, that's almost pushing it into that 70% category. When people feel that change is something that's happening, and they have a sense of ownership and investment in it, then that's where you see really effective change, and that's when you can move towards continuous change and continuous evolution of an organisation.

So I think the three big things are communicate, communicate, and then finally, when you've done that, keep communicating. It's really important to explain to your people why we're getting into this change, to have that opportunity to talk about the challenges and the benefits, to allow people to buy into that and shape the change. But also, really, really critically, at the heart of it, is having that one-to-one conversation with people about what does this mean for me personally. Because in many cases, that fear and that sense of concern about change comes from, how is this going to impact my life? And when you can engage on a one-to-one level and get people a sense of confidence that their needs and concerns are at the heart of the change process, that undoubtedly makes it a far smoother and simpler process.