Middle managers tend to be quite good at maintaining business. They put their energy into keeping people on track. They maintain compliance with policies. They try to establish a productive and balanced business situation. Middle management has a tough time with business change because that stability is violated. Getting middle managers on board with change is very important. The Quad A modelA method referred to as Quad A has been successful in getting middle management on-board.
The four stages of Quad A are Assess, Analyze, Affirm, and Authorize. Managers that go through these steps are far more likely to get behind the business change. The assessment step is actually a two stage process. The first task is to surmount middle management’s struggle against change. This is done by creating an understanding of the change that is going to happen. This will be followed with the overall business case. An assessment of the affected responsibility areas is the next step. Finally, they need to identify the issues that must be resolved before an analysis of the change can be made.
After the identification of issues to be resolved has been dealt with, the assessment can move forward. At this juncture in the process, a list of reasonable objections to the business change should be developed. This is not just air clearing exercise; there needs to be an understanding that solutions will be created for the objections. Middle managers are expected to support the change and help find solutions. These expectations must be backed by authority above the middle managers, in the event that compliance has to be compelled.
The analysis step is where the nitty-gritty of the plans are gone over. This is where impact assessments, risk analysis, and risk mitigation planning occurs. As business never stops, a business continuation plan has to be developed. Here, it is advisable to identify those who will be effected by the change and their accountability level. Until such time as managers will sign off on the business change strategy, the process will need to go on.
Affirm is the simplest of the stages. The involved middle managers must affirm their belief that the change is operable and will generate the desired outcomes. Effectively, the managers are saying, “I’ve cited all my objections and I think that this will work now.” After that, it is necessary for them to offer an affirmation that, in their opinions, the implementation plans are sufficient and the tools are ready for it to move forward.
The last step is authorization. This is the juncture where managers are asked to commit tangible support to the project. They are asked to put into writing that they authorize approval of the business change. Those authorizations will be released to the change team and sent up the chain of command. The frontline managers will receive the plans with the authorization from middle management. A time for the plans to go into effect will be included. To handle the unanticipated problems inherent in change initiatives, it will be incumbent on the managers and supervisors to establish a plan for dealing with those issues in real time.
Successful completion of the four stag method with the seclected managers will be followed by a similar process with the remainder of the middle managers. In this way, by dealing with the bulk of the problems with a handful of middle managers, the process should run much more quickly and efficiently with remaining middle managers.
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