We’re good at implementing CRM technology, but our projects can still fail if we ignore the human element. Don’t let this happen to you.
I recently ran a buying facilitation program for a well-known accounting software company. During the training, it became obvious that the new CRM program was not a hit: the reps were complaining; few knew how to use it properly; the supervisors were continually running to the IT group for help; the IT people would often come by and be helpful but roll their eyes in annoyance as they left; meetings would ensue between the IT professionals and the management to discuss misunderstandings, new needs in the software function, and support needs that were arising – it was a mess
No one was happy. Everyone was annoyed with everyone else – the techies with the managers and users, the users with the managers and the techies, and the managers with the users and techies. Everyone felt they were doing their part, and doing a fine job given the problems they had to deal with. The CRM solution got lost in a tangle of blame and annoyance, resistance and resentment.
What happened here? Mostly it was a people problem.
- The service reps hadn’t been brought into the initial CRM project development phase and had to “deal with” the new system that was foisted on them;
- The technical team was given technology and told to develop it, without any established strategy for resolving personal issues that might arise;
- The management team failed to recognize that its “customer” was the entire implementation team – including reps and technicians.
What’s Missing from This Picture?
Until now, we’ve based our implementation strategies around the doing: the architecture, design, development, delivery and technical aspects of the system itself; the ability to share data across business contexts; the management of interactions with customers; and the project management skills.
Sure, we know how to bring CRM systems into our companies. We know how to manage the projects, share data, plan, measure, and integrate. We understand that our customers have choices, and we know how to capture their data to manage customer interactions. We understand the technical aspects of the project.
But what about the people? What about all your internal customers who must use the system daily, communicate across contexts and across levels of hierarchies, influence strangers with inadequate vocabularies, and work in teams with different job functions and different goals?
Who’s Afraid of CRM?
When we bring in a CRM system, we’re doing more than creating additional options for our client base. We’re asking our employees to change.
Usually, people are comfortable with their current jobs. They accepted the job thinking they had something to offer and could have fun in the process of making money. But when you bring in a CRM project, people don’t know how the end results will affect them, even if they agreed with the initial decision to bring in the system.
Resisting Change
At the beginning of the change process they have no way of knowing:
- If their beliefs, values, and needs will be served;
- If they’ll like the new better than the old;
- If they’ll lose their comfortable work systems and structures;
- If they’ll be asked to change;
- If their ego and status and interpersonal needs will remain stable.
Not only do all the team members have to deal with the change process and shift their understanding of what coming to work each day will mean, they then have to navigate the cross-departmental approach that’s required for a successful project implementation.
Too often we fail to make sure that all of the people involved in the CRM implementation know how to communicate, resolve conflict, and make decisions together. They lack a common language that they created together to re-form into a new unit.
Managers are ultimately responsible for leading the change charge – facilitating group resolution, buy-in, and full participation.
Breaking the Belief Barrier
We can tell people what they’re supposed to do. We can ask them to do a new job. We can give them special incentives to do a new job. But fundamentally we cannot make them do something that they don’t believe in.
Change hinges on beliefs. No matter how much change is going on around us, the ultimate change must occur when we examine who we are, why we’re doing what we’re doing, and what needs to happen for us to be willing to change. Most of us hold our beliefs dear as standards, or explanations of who we are. This applies to individuals, teams, and even entire corporations.
When you begin a new CRM project, you’re going up against an established status quo. Some of the most common barriers are as follows.
1. People have already bought into the current environment just as it is. Simple. They’ve already voted with their feet. Whatever is going on is just fine.
2. People understand their roles and relationships within the current environment. How will anyone be seen or positioned in the new work environment? Will the pecking order change? Remember, you’re asking them to face the unknown and possibly end up worse off.
3. People are working from their strengths. They’ve chosen that job and that department (or have accepted a move into that job or department) because it’s what they do well. You’ll be introducing a new system that could change all this.
I once ran a training program for a sales group that spent its time making face-to-face visits with prospects and clients about once per month. The salespeople’s job was to deliver donuts in the hopes of getting into the good graces of the people who chose their service over their competitors.
The purpose of my training was to bring them in-house, give them the skills to create more meaningful conversations by having bi-monthly phone contacts, and working with a decisioning system to teach the prospects and clients how to decide to use it more often than they had been.
It worked. Business began coming in quickly. Everyone was making more money. The management was ecstatic. But the sales reps revolted. They gave an ultimatum: Go back to the way it was, or they would leave en mass. What happened?
They were being shifted from external sales reps to internal phone reps, while they wanted to stay outside delivering donuts. Their main focus was not increasing business. Ultimately, the company fired the manager who brought me in and returned people to delivering donuts.
4. Managers understand what results to expect in a given environment. They have an established measure for success and failure that might not translate in the new system. How will teammates interact with themselves, with other departments? How will they be monitored? What personal and personnel issues will arise?
In another situation, I ran a very successful training program for a well-known healthcare provider. Business increased 600% in one month. Although we worked hard prior to the program launch to install a new payment, supervision, and management system, it was not set up for the change.
The sales reps were paid by the number of visits made, not by the closed sales. When the training was complete, they improved their closing ratio by 50% while decreasing their field visits by 75%. Because management continued to match old metrics with new results, the sales reps ended up earning 75% less even though they were bringing in more revenue. Ultimately they revolted because the system had not been changed to accommodate them.
5. People have ego needs that are managed within their current work environment. What happens to egos during and after the change process? Will the pecking order change? You can’t have it both ways: you’ve got to tear up the yard and make a mess before it gets pretty. Destroy – mess – pretty. In that order.
6. People are comfortable with the current operating policies and probably even helped create them. When the change process begins, no one knows how much say they’ll have on policy. And they less say they have, the less buy-in you’ll get.
The real problem boils down to loss of control, lack of stability, fear of the unknownwhatever angle you look at – people, roles, rules, systems, growth, revenue – they all spell “no control.”
Delving Deeper
If we ignore the deeper “people” issues, it’s almost impossible to merge the personal, professional, organizational, and operational to create a truly aligned team. The result is a CRM implementation that may fail before it even gets off the ground.
I believe that it’s necessary – and possible – to guide each person through his or her personal issues and beliefs and into group resolution and full participation. But how do we meld the personal, professional, organizational, and operational?
A New Set of Skills
We have the initiatives in place to make our CRM systems work. We have the software and related technology. We have the passion to get it right, to lead the charge, to teach our customers how to choose us – and how to empower them to make their best decisions.
But we also need the skills to teach people how to work together successfully with communication that works across contexts, with a mission statement that disparate job titles can buy into, and with roles and rules that offer the expanded team a way to collaborate together and withstand the pressures of change.
The following communication facilitation model will help teams integrate the personal with the strategic to ensure a successful operation that brings each team member, each job description, and each job function into the type of alignment that leads to creativity, compliance, and collaboration.
Step One: The Dialog Process
As Glenna Girard and Linda Ellinor describe in their wonderful book Dialogue: Rediscover the Transforming Power of Communication, the Dialogue Process is a first step in getting people to communicate. For people to thrive within an environment of change, we must first give them a chance to air their concerns and have an input on the new environment before the system is brought in.
An internal or outside consultant needs to monitor the running of the group to make sure that everyone follows the rules, no single person takes over the discussion, and that there is no cross talk. Often companies hire an independent consultant to lead the teams through this exercise.
During this process, all team players and stakeholders sit in a large circle and are prompted by the consultant to discuss a specific topic – say, cross-team collaboration in the face of new technology. They are encouraged to discuss their personal issues: their fears, their annoyances, their hopes and dreams. Each person is encouraged to share his or her personal thoughts, feelings, and needs. Note that while people are expressing concerns and talking about specific issues, they are speaking through the filter of their belief systems.
This process will air high-level issues but it won’t get to the deeper personal issues and beliefs that cause the resistance later. But this does start the process.
Step Two: The Consultant’s Process
Once the consultant hears all of the stated issues, s/he must attempt to recognize and annotate all of the beliefs behind the stated issues.
For example, s/he may hear people say, “I’m excited about bringing CRM in and how it will affect our customers” with no commentary on what will happen to the internal structure of the teams. Or others may say, “I’m not sure how comfortable I’ll feel once the CRM system is in place.” Both responses would indicate the need for a greater understanding of the system.
There are certain issues that must be addressed, either during the Dialogue Process or in the group meetings that will be held afterwards. These include questions such as:
1. What do you think your job will be once CRM is a part of your daily work system?
2.How do you think your job will change?
3.What issues do you think will come up for you if your job is changed dramatically, or if you are uncomfortable with the changes?
4.How would you know that this team is fully aligned? How would you know that the entire group of stakeholders is working together on the following levels:
   a.joint vision;
   b.joint goal setting;
   c.joint vocabulary;
   d.job roles and responsibilities;
   e.personal issues that come up and affect the group
   f.creation of new rules to manage the unknown
The ultimate goal here is to incorporate the personal into the professional. Without this, resistance will occur in strange and mysterious ways.
Step Three: The Decision Funnel
Once the internal consultant understands how the group, and each member, handles the above issues, it’s time to begin the decision facilitation phase. Note that the group members don’t need to understand all of the personal issues, it’s the consultant’s job to understand them and lead the people through the maze of choices, skill sets, and confusion.
The Decision Funnel will then help the consultant lead everyone through this maze both individually and collaboratively, based on the norms they establish as a newly assembled group.
The Funnel uses a series of facilitative questions to help surface unspoken problems and identify potential solutions:
1. Where are we now? How is the group formation coming along?
2. What personal issues need to be addressed in order to ensure each person is fully integrated?
3. What needs to happen for each person to become a part of this group? How will the group know when one member is having difficulty staying connected? What rules or customs need to be instituted to ensure each person has a place to be safe while remaining in the group?
4. How will you help the group integrate those who are having difficulty? How will the group decide when it’s time to ask a team member to leave?
5. What needs to happen for the group to hold the values and mission of the project? How will they recognize when individuals or job descriptions are reforming into old alliances, or having difficulty forming with the new group? What needs to be done about this?
6. How does the group plan to create an ongoing dialogue so they can address work problems as they arise? How often should they meet?
7. What rules need to be put in place to go forward? What new job descriptions? How do people feel about these new descriptions? Jobs? Relationships? How will the group handle problems that arise when rules are broken? Disagreements? When new rules have to be created, or changed?
By addressing these issues, the consultant can make sure that the people who will be using, supervising, and maintaining the CRM software will have a way to work together as a new team – ultimately ensuring acceptance and use of the system.
Don’t forget that without people’s buy-in, without their brains and creativity and diversity, and without their sweat, hard work, and loyalty to your brand, you will have a much more difficult time introducing change into your organization.
Should you wish to learn more about this, go to www.buyingfacilitation.com and purchase my ebook Buying Facilitation: the new way to sell that expands and influences decisions
