Hi, I'm Ken Bettenhausen,
professor of management at the University of Colorado Denver.
In this lesson, you'll hear Brenna Simmons sing on,
a member of our managing for sustainability advisory council
describe how she initiated a change that involved other departments,
required considerable investment and was only successful with her deliberate planning.
As you listen, make notes of the things she did
both big and small that were critical to her success.
You'll be able to share them with other learners at the end of
the lesson and we'll be coming back to this example in
future lessons as we cover with what you need to think about and
do to propose major changes where you live and work.
Of course, I think change management and change
initiation has always been a part of my job where I
go with- the hospitality companies have a lot
of growth that they can do in sustainability initiatives.
And so as I move through different hotels I would always start and look kinda
what's at little hanging fruit that they haven't
implemented that we can start with right away.
Once you get the initial buy in and show the cost benefit
from the employee morale and a profit cost savings,
even profit revenue stream can start taking on bigger and bigger projects.
And if there's not an issue but there's
an opportunity you can identify that opportunity and that
does come from being- paying very close attention to the work that you're doing,
to the market around you,
to what other competitors are doing or to
what other organizations are doing if there's not a problem.
Or if there's a need for change if you know there's a lot of stuff
happening right now federally that there's a lot of change going on.
And so having an ear tuned to what's going on,
you can realize an opportunity for where change is needed.
And then I always get by and
simultaneously and you know it might seem somewhat manipulative,
it's all done with the best intentions but I know the adage plant seeds and water them,
nurture them to help them grow.
And that's really how I get by and so it's not going
to my boss right away and saying, "Here's my idea.
This is what I want to do. Here's my plan."
It's kind of planting seeds along the way with meetings
and comments and bits of articles or information
that I found to start to get them to open
up to that idea before the idea is even presented.
And doing that with colleagues as well.
And again depending on the scope and scale of
change and how it's going to directly affect
the stakeholder that you're speaking to is going to
affect the level of motivation that you need to engage with them on.
But I always start very early on in the process to get
that by and as soon as possible and to get them
engaged so that they have
the ownership of the change as it actually starts to become implemented.
And that one because there was so many stakeholders within the hotel,
that apartments that it was going to affect.
There was lots of resistance of change but there was also lots of drivers to tap into.
And I think to be a really effective change agent and you need to tap into both of
those.That if you only focus on the drivers and not the
resistance you're going to sell yourself short and vice versa.
So looking at the changes in the laundry system,
the drivers were cost savings,
labor savings, water savings, energy savings,
less chemical usage, better result in the linen, longer linen life.
And so there's lots of opportunities there too.
Sounds like a no brainer.
Yeah. There is...
Who could resist that?
A lot of people,
the laundry staff was some of the most tenured staff in the hotel.
Someone had worked there for 55 years.
And you know, "Why would we change?
We've always done it this way.
I don't want to learn anything new.
I can't learn anything new at this point."
So really empowering the staff to get excited about learning something new.
A lot of studies,
I'm not going to quote any now because they don't have the top of my head but
show that even as you learn as you go along it keeps the brain young.
And so the learning of something new is actually really
healthy for us throughout our lives.
And so you know not using that as a reason for the change but using that kind of in
my back pocket as we engage with the staff and train them on the new system.
One of the biggest resistors in that change was the engineering department.
They had to install water meters in the laundry system to make sure
that the savings were being actualized otherwise the ROI,
the return on the investment was just something we're estimating.
So that was something you actually want,
the tangible dollar amount savings.
How many gallons you were saving?
Correct. Yes. And so they had to install water meter at the laundry department.
They were really resistant to that,
that a change out the laundry equipment for the equipment that fed
the chemicals and programmed all the laundry systems
and there was a lot of resistance with that as well.
Not necessarily from the laundry staff but from the- oh excuse me
the engineering staff but from the engineering leadership.
And there's always that kind of tension in hotels
because if you're doing changes to
the building it's always going to affect the engineering team.
And so any hotel I went to that was always something I came across and I
made a point as much as I could to befriend the engineering leadership,
befriend the engineering team and really try to get them onboard with the change.
So do they have a budget was because they were going to have to bear the cost of
it or was it because they'd have to bear the the work of installing it or I mean...?
Definitely both.
So are these just foot draggers or what are they?
How do you get to talk to them I mean what are they- what are they
doing that's keeps gets in the way?
Well I mean I think you hit on right on the head there that
it's going to be the labor of
the engineering staff doing the physical change at the beginning.
And also the cost in typical business world costs follows revenue.
So if the cost of
the laundry system was paid by
the engineering team they were in it- they
said at first off they don't have it in their budget.
So one of the things I did was forecast this for budget season for the following year.
And so we started talking about it I believe in summer
of the current year wanting to implement it as soon as possible.
But knowing that there was
financial burden to the engineering team ended up doing research,
getting by in early on,
doing training with the staff figuring out that this is something we could do.
And then in the last quarter of that year as
we're budgeting for the following year folding in
the changes into that next operational budget so that that couldn't be a barrier anymore.
And working with the accounting department and
executive leadership to make sure that the cost for that
operational changes would have been recognized in the operational budget for
the following year and just eliminating that resistance right there.
Yeah it's so important that you're realistic about the cost.
You've done your homework and that you have enough lead time
to actually utilize this normal processes of a company.
So the budgeting process is sometimes at six months,
usually it's a year, sometimes it's a five-year budgeting paddle.
It's a bigger capital expense and so you really have to understand your organization,
understand where it fits and how you can not be at odds with that.
Most definitely. And I think if you do that- if you do your homework on
the budget you can actually use that as your friend
and ally with any changes that you're implementing.
If you can forecast what the change is going to be.
One thing that was always a barrier to any change that
required upfront capital would be- "well where is that the budget?
We didn't budget for this, we didn't forecast for it?"
Once I got that answer a few times early in my career I
realized that the more I could fold these changes
and as far ahead as possible into
the budget the more likely they would be to be approved and be successful.
OK. Now then you've heard Brenna describe this change,
take a few minutes to share what you saw as the most important things you did.
Include as many as you'd like but include at least two big things that she
did and two little things that were also important to gain acceptance of her idea.
John ByrdSenior Instructor
Kenneth BettenhausenProfessor
