Using Readiness Metrics To Gauge Progress And Find Problems

Survive & Thrive

When implementing a change, how do you know if it’s successful or creating more problems than it’s solving? If you’re smart, you’re using change management metrics to gauge progress, what success looks like, how the change is impacting employees, and finding critical problems before they blow up in your face.

On this episode of the Survive & Thrive podcast, Jennifer Ayers is joined by Jigar Shah to discuss the importance of change management metrics and what organizational leaders should be measuring in the first place. Jigar is a strategic advisor at Concinnity, focusing on helping businesses accelerate growth through analyzing metrics.

Listen to Jennifer and Jigar talk about change management metrics:

Jigar’s introduction (1:42)

Jennifer introduces Jigar and they discuss his background in business.

Business transformation example (4:49)

Jigar talks about a business transformation that didn’t go so well, discussing what went right and what went wrong.

Readiness metrics needed for change (7:09)

While Jigar notes that each transformation will require different metrics, he gives a few examples of things an organization might need to track to determine their readiness for change.

Can you measure the readiness of an organization? (9:43)

The coronavirus pandemic has altered the landscape dramatically but Jigar believes a company’s culture and how they view their employees will determine how ready an organization is for a change.

Metrics included in a change program (12:44)

Jigar believes tracking every metric to see how they change over time and then altering the strategy based on the data is the most important thing an organization can do, regardless of the metric.

Best cases of change management (16:50)

Jennifer and Jigar discuss an example of change management where consistent support from leadership and planning ensured things went smoothly.

Analytics tips to consider (22:27)

When considering a change and thinking about it all the way to completion, Jigar believes the combination of people, process, and technology are essential to drive better business results. If any one of those are off, the entire dynamic gets thrown off.

How to survive and thrive during change (27:00)

According to Jigar, measuring and celebrating success is an important part of not just surviving a change but thriving during it. He believes by highlighting moments of success and the people behind it, it increases faith in the change.

Postface

While not discussed in the podcast itself, right after the call, Jigar pointed out that one of Scott Galloway’s strategies for trillion dollar firms is ‘career accelerant’. That is the ability to attract and retain talent, which is a crucial strategy to compete now more than ever. Companies like Microsoft just spent $200M and gave everyone a $1,500 bonus for their pandemic efforts. This is just one example of what some companies are doing to check the pulse of their people and take action to retain talent that can easily jump ship to one of the other FAANG companies.

Links mentioned:

Concinnity - Website

Jigar Shah - LinkedIn

The Heart of Business - Book

The Progress Principle - Book