IT Systems Implementation

CLG understands that before you can realize a return on investment (ROI) for new technology you need to link the results you want with the behaviors that produce them – at all levels of your organization. Your initial focus should be on your employees’ capability and willingness to change established patterns of behavior, rather than quick deployment. Once your employees understand the benefits of your new IT system, they will become stakeholders in your technology investment. Success depends on the individual users and the people who lead them.

CLG’s Solution to IT Implementation Problems

Your senior leaders might be setting themselves up for disappointment if they expect a quick payback on the new IT system. In spite of having the latest software, employee training, and a sizeable monetary investment, problems with deployment of a new system are to be expected.

Issues that often accompany the implementation of a new IT system include:

• Poor system design: IT programmers and project team leads are generally not fluent in assessing their system designs from the viewpoints of multiple end users. As a result, when people in the field begin to use the new system, they are often initially discouraged.

  CLG gets into the process early, working with your IT vendors and project teams to help them “design in” positive behavioral consequences. This is called “Designing for YES!^SM” The goal is to have end users say, “YES! Someone has finally designed something that I want to use.” When the design is well-crafted from a behavioral perspective, less change management support is needed in the field.

• Resistance to standardization: When IT systems are standardized, the accompanying changes may be counter intuitive to end users.

  While your leadership team may look forward to realizing the benefits of standardized systems and processes, they might also underestimate the “dip” in productivity that occurs when employees are slow to adjust to the new way of doing things.

  CLG has observed situations in which people were so resistant to the changes that they simply avoided the training sessions, ultimately creating project overruns on cost and schedule. Worse yet, employees often create “work-arounds,” by appearing to use the new system, while they continue to adhere to the old way of doing things.

  To overcome such resistance, CLG helps you identify which staff groups require the most assistance and then trains your leaders to coach and support employees while they adapt to, and embrace, the new processes.

• Lengthy learning curve: New systems come with learning curves. CLG works with your senior teams, and asks them to remember that the new system is not something that will come naturally to everyone. Proper technical training is essential to initiate behavior change. But coaching support by leaders after go-live is even more critical to making those behavior changes “stick.”

  CLG’s transition coaching process helps your leaders use behavior checklists to observe whether people are using the system as intended, from getting good data into the system, to using the data to make better business decisions.

• Loss of privacy: Some degree of privacy loss for employees can occur when you implement a new IT system, due to systems integration and improved methods of capturing productivity data.

  CLG’s positive approach to behavior change and accountability can alleviate the fears people naturally have about data being used against them.

• Less power to make decisions: Integration will challenge existing power bases and the nature of some senior roles in your organization. While most IT systems are put in to facilitate better decision-making based on integrated data, those who were in the position to make more localized decisions under the previous system may feel threatened.

  It is our experience that when leaders give up control and decision making authority in their areas, a “behavioral vacuum” is created. We often find that leaders do not know what other things they can do to contribute at a more strategic level. They resist anything that they perceive will take away their authority and control. CLG helps companies overcome this resistance by creating a specific set of legitimate leadership activities that help these leaders operate at a higher level—and add more value.

CLG Addresses Your IT Deployment Challenges Head On

We realize that IT deployments are expensive and risky undertakings. We work collaboratively with all your stakeholders, from IT vendors and senior executives to project teams and line leaders. This helps us, and you, to make sure design decisions and deployment plans are targeted towards ensuring that your end-users embrace the new system, using it to its fullest capability to achieve the ROI you are counting on.

For more information on this challenge, explore our fact sheet, A Technology Promise Only People Can Fulfill.