Hard changes sequenced so the organization absorbs only as much loss and disruption at a time as it can bear keep enough support to carry the next stage.
An example
Five changes were due in the same year when the new head of customer operations at a regional power and gas distributor took over: a new billing system, the closure of two walk-in offices, a field scheduling tool, a revised call center schedule, and smart meter installs in three counties. Her call center managers told her the staff were already at their limit. She went to the chief operating officer with a revised sequence. Billing went first, because the old system's vendor support ended in December. The office closures moved to the following spring, after billing had settled. The scheduling tool and the call center changes were combined into one change in the autumn of the second year. She published the sequence to every manager, with the reasons for the order. Call center turnover stayed flat through billing, and the office closures went through with one formal grievance.
Why it works
People can absorb only so much loss and disruption at once. Past that point they resist, and support for the whole program drains away. Sequencing keeps each stage within what the organization can bear, which makes each one easier to accept and leaves enough goodwill to carry the next. It depends on knowing which changes are truly urgent, on a sponsor with the authority to reorder them, and on publishing the sequence so that a pause is not mistaken for retreat.
The thinking behind it
Ronald A. Heifetz Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading (2002), by Heifetz and Linsky, advises pacing the work: people can absorb only so much difficult change at once, so a leader who wants change to last regulates how much is asked of people and when. It also advises getting on the balcony, stepping back to see the larger pattern. Reading turnover and grievances before reordering the changes is that view from the balcony.
Marty Linsky Pacing the work, in Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading, rests on the observation that people can take only so much difficult change at a time. Sequencing five changes so each stage stays within that limit keeps enough goodwill to carry the next one; the same five changes asked for at once would have used it all up.
When it fits
Leaders who own several hard changes at once, in an organization close to its limit, need it most: a turnaround, an integration, a technology overhaul. You need the authority to set the order, the trust of the managers who carry the load, and a reading of how much the organization can take, gathered from the people closest to the work.
How to use it well
List every change you are asking for, with what each costs the people who carry it.
- Ask frontline managers where the limit is and what would break first.
- Put first whatever cannot wait, and next whatever makes later changes easier.
- Hold the rest, and say when each will come.
- Tell each manager what is coming to their team and when, before it is announced.
- Watch turnover, sick days, error rates, and grievances, and slow down if they rise.
Keep some pressure on between stages, so a pause does not turn into a reprieve.
What it costs and where it backfires
Pacing costs time, and the benefits of the later stages arrive later. Some people will read a pause as weakness and organize against the next step, while others push you to go faster. Hiding later stages from the people they will affect, or describing the destination as smaller than it is so they accept early steps they would have resisted, is concealment, and pacing gives no cover for it.
When it is used on you
Ask to see the whole sequence and the end state, in writing, when a change you oppose arrives in stages. Judge the program by where it ends up. If the pace really is too fast for your people, bring the evidence: turnover, errors, overtime. Evidence of that kind changes schedules.