The Urgent Case for Change

The 9-Step Change Cycle

The Urgent Case for Change — AKA the Burning Platform for Change — is key to initiating change and staying on top of your game. Businesses, teams and your Uncle Bob are unlikely to survive if they fail to acknowledge or understand this critical step for change.

This first step has been entrenched by the real-life events of the “Burning Platform” which took place on July 6th, 1988.

On that day, the Piper Alpha oil rig in the North Sea exploded — the result of a failure to check some simple systems that had worked faultlessly for the previous decade. The explosion in turn caused a massive fire. 167 men died — the largest number killed in an offshore accident.

The scale of the blast was immense.

The flames from the blaze shot 90 metres in the air and apparently could be seen 100 km away. At first the workers locked themselves in a room in part of the rig — hoping the fire would burn out or emergency systems would kick in. Eventually three men, realising this wouldn’t work, made it to the edge of the platform, and stood staring into one of the world’s coldest and roughest oceans. They had two choices — to stay where they were and hope for possible rescue from the flames or to jump into the freezing ocean and risk almost certain death from hypothermia.

Two men chose to jump — and they lived, despite being terribly injured, thanks to a rescue operation mounted by sea.

The man who chose to stay put, sadly, perished, as helicopters failed to make it in time.

Can you see the parallels in business? In businesses and projects, there is usually a point in time where the potential benefits of taking risky action to change far outweigh the imminent failures if the organisation sticks to what it knows.

How do we ensure that our teams are able to take actions that are measured and calculated though risky, like the men who jumped, rather than stay put in increasingly perilous conditions?

In this and the next 8 articles, we share examples of how you can get moving with our 9-Step Change Cycle for making change happen in your organisation, whatever your size or industry.

The cycle draws on method and practice combining Lean Six Sigma and Kotter’s Change Principles with our 30 years of experience, giving you 9 tested steps to successfully making change happen — and stick! For a blow-by-blow overview of the whole cycle, you can read all about it in the kick-off article, Making Change Happen: Our 9-Step Change Cycle

Read on for real life examples of the use (or not) of the Urgent Case for Change in business. You might recognise them!

Bad Example| failing to understand the urgent case for change

Blockbuster was doing great as the leader in video rentals. Viacom purchased them for a whopping $8.4 billion in 1991. Unfortunately, they ignored the Urgent Case for Change. Their existing business model centred on physical rentals but they failed to adjust to the shifting entertainment environment — online streaming was increasingly popular. Meanwhile Netflix had just begun gaining traction providing home entertainment directly, at the click of a mouse.

Blockbuster did not see the urgency for change and failed to conduct an organised assessment of their customer needs, operating model and innovative advances to increase customer value. At the same time, they proceeded to try and bolster their revenue by charging stiff late fees to their customers. This alienated their customers and did little to increase their value proposition.

Netflix, comparable to the fire on the rig, began to erode Blockbuster clients with a “no late fee” policy.

Today, Blockbuster is a nostalgic brand with one remaining store and a website. Blockbuster wasn’t paying attention to what mattered to their customers, nor their own need to change!

Good Example| controlled urgency, adapting to uncontrollable variables

Following the 2008 financial crisis, RBS Group was ordered to sell its insurance business by European Union regulators, as a condition of RBS receiving £45bn in state aid.

RBS’s insurance business, was tasked with separating its operations from RBS Group into a standalone company, in order to be ready for either a trade sale to a competitor, or listing on the stock market.

They turned the challenge into an opportunity and used the separation process to create a viable, standalone, rebranded insurance organisation, now known as Direct Line Group.

The entire approach had to be one of controlled urgency, there was no Plan B and the leadership teams embraced the need to shift their people on to the next step as rapidly and as efficiently as possible.

It took only 18 months to separate out every single strand of the business, from customer data, to independent functions and governance. This was very much a case of operating from a burning platform.

Once the separation had been effected, the focus was on creating a new brand and rapidly building the business into a viable standalone operation.

In 2012 the board went for an IPO of its insurance business, Direct Line, that turned out to be the biggest and most successful London stock market listing that year. Its success heralded the start of a new, post-crisis IPO era.

Dos and Don’ts for making the Urgent Case for Change

While we can learn from the stories of others, no change journey is identical. We can, however, take away some key principles that underpin successful (and unsuccessful) change initiatives.

Take a look at our list of key Dos and Don’ts for making the Urgent Case for Change in your business!

a) DO specify current pain points| DON’T rely on hypotheticals

Begin with your problem statement — a few lines detailing the current pain. Pay attention to what’s causing pain for your business now: customers, staff, contractors, shareholders…who else?

b) DO forecast 1–12 month damage and loss based on real data, if no change happens| DON’T go beyond 12 months or exaggerate

What are the consequences if everything and everyone remains the same? Keep it real.

c) DO detail recent and forecasted missed real opportunities, against potential gains if change happens| DON’T go beyond 12 months, exaggerate or use hypotheticals

What have you already lost as a result of staying the same? What are the foreseeable losses? Again, keep it real.

d) DO communicate your Change Solution as simply as possible, outline relevant outcomes| DON’T close without your proposed changes

Avoid getting lost in the detail. Would an infographic, bullet points, charts or graphs save time and communicate real data clearer? What about a simple before and after picture graphic? Make sure to emphasise:

1. where you are now

2. where you want to be

3. the change that must happen to get from 1 to 2.

What next?

Once you have a clear and compelling Urgent Case for Change, you must ensure that the right people are listening. Who has the power to approve and make proposed changes? What is their preferred method of digesting information?

The next stage is Lead from the Top. Our next article in this 9-Step Change Cycle series tackles the importance of having your most powerful and authoritative team members owning actions and championing the change!

We hope you found this article helpful. If you need help making change happen in your organisation, feel free to book a free 30-minute chat with us, send us a message, or visit our Resources for downloadable resources!