The Life and Times of a Change

Manager (Part 2a)

Contributed by Ron Leeman on August 5, 2015 in Organization, Change, & HR

Editor’s Note: Ron Leeman is a world-recognized Change Manager and author of several

Change, Process, and Project training guides on Flevy . He has decided to write a series of

articles that chronicle his personal “change” journey. This is the second installment. You

can read the first piece here . You can also learn more about Ron and his approach to

Change in our recent interview with him .

* * * *

Before I start, I have a bit of an anecdote for

you related to my previous article . When I

first applied to go on the Work Study course

at Shrivenham, I had to go through an

assessment and interview process and was

told that my application was borderline and

they concluded that I would probably not be

suited to this kind of work, but as they needed

people, they OK’d me to attend the course. All

I will say is…

So, here we go Part 2a of the Life and Times

of a Change Manager… the Abbey/Abbey

National years between 1989 and 1996, but

specifically my early years and my work as:

A Business Analyst for their Systems Division in Milton Keynes.

A Productivity Consultant for their Productivity Services Department in London.

I will follow this up with a Part 2b and a Part 2c, which will cover my time as a Productivity

Consultant, Process Improvement Consultant, and Profit Improvement Consultant

following a move to Abbey National’s HQ in Milton Keynes.

As I said at the end of the previous article, I resigned from the MoD in 1989, because of the

strict protocols in place regarding promotion e.g. X number of years in the job, X number of

above satisfactory work reviews, etc. Basically, you could not get promoted on merit alone,

so I left to join what was then Abbey National, which later converted from a Building Society

into a Bank and became Abbey National plc and then Abbey.

I have to say that this was a difficult decision, because having been with the MoD “man and

boy” for some 20-years, on the cusp of my 40th birthday and having been finally selected for

promotion, you can imagine some of the trials and tribulations I was going through!

Could I cut it in the private sector?

Am I too old to be doing this?

What if I fail?

But, I was stuck in a rut and needed a change (no pun intended), so I applied for two jobs

and got an interview for both. This was certainly a boost to the ego. I went to both

interviews and was offered both jobs with almost the same salary, which incidentally was

way more than I was earning with the MoD. After careful consideration, I opted for the

Abbey National role as a Business Analyst in Milton Keynes, UK.

Off I trot to start my new job and was immediately landed with a project to evaluate and

select a suitable PC computer security solution for Abbey National’s Systems Audit and IT

Security Department, which was to be rolled-out across the Group. Coming from the fairly

mundane work I did at the MoD, this was a bit of a bombshell. I had never been asked to do

something of this importance and magnitude with such a far reaching impact. And, in

addition, way back then, computer security was not the big deal it is today, so, in essence, I

was going to be breaking new ground. Anyway, not being the kind of person to be phased by

such an undertaking, I recalled a slogan that had been coined the previous year by Nike–

”Just Do It.”

So I did!

With my thinking hat on I defined the key process steps:

Identify scope e.g. how many computers to be protected.

Define overall requirements.

Define selection criteria e.g. the Must have, Desirable, Nice to have and Not important.

Identify suppliers … some of those suppliers are still “big in security” today:

Request information from suppliers.

Evaluate solutions against requirements.

Short list.

Solution selection.

I only got to the “evaluate stage” (the reason why is in the next section). but the memory

that sticks in my mind is that after some painstaking and detailed analysis of the different

solutions against the pre-determined criteria I recorded all of this onto a spreadsheet and

color coded the solution capabilities against the selection criteria to make it easy to identify

those suppliers that were able to fulfill our requirements against the selection criteria e.g.:

Green … fully met requirements.

Orange … partially met requirements.

Red … did not meet requirements

So, the solution provider with the most “green” was the one best suited. My boss saw this

and commented how good it was to display the analysis in a simple and easy way that

anyone could understand without necessary having to look at the detail. It was at this stage I

felt that I had “made my mark” and it was also the foundation of two things I still try and

follow today:

Anyway, back to the reason why I never finished the project.

In an internal newsletter there were some Productivity Consultant jobs being advertised at

Grade 9 in London. I was currently a Grade 7 btw. The JD fitted my experience perfectly but

I had only been with Abbey National for just over 6-weeks so I wondered if I was able to

apply and, in addition, I felt I might be letting down my current boss. Having ascertained

from HR that I could apply for a job that involved promotion at any time and also after

speaking with my boss, who gave me the “green light” (back to colours … LOL) to apply, I

did. I was interviewed by two Senior Productivity Consultants one of whom liked me and the

other was not so sure but, low and behold I got the job, with a salary increase to boot! What

a stark contrast to the restrictive promotion practices during my years with the MoD!

So after 3-months as a Business Systems Analyst I became a Productivity Consultant and

went to work at Abbey National’s building in Baker Street, London. “Baker Street? Isn’t that

…” I here you ask? Yep made famous by two things:

A classic song (one of my favourites) by the late Gerry Rafferty , and of course …

221b Baker Street the world-famous fictional address of Sherlock Holmes (the museum was

just a few doors down from the Abbey National building)

Talking about bombshells! On my first day I was given not one but two projects … my

goodness I would have to multi-task!!! Again the negative thoughts came back to haunt me

but as I had some success in my previous role the Nike ad came back into play. So here are

the two projects?

Project 1: Making Efficiencies to the Mortgage Application

Process

This was a project that had already been kicked-off by a colleague who had determined that

one of the main areas of delay was getting a completed Surveys from the Surveyors to

Lending Operations. The current process, which pre-dated e-mails & attachments as we

know them today, or any kind of centrally accessible storage systems, was to send the

completed survey by internal post. This obviously relied on the efficiency of that process and

sometimes took up to 3-days!

So my colleague came up with the technically astute idea of using faxes to send survey

reports. Faxes during the 80’s and the 90’s were the most used medium to transmit images

and documents. This eradicated the problem of distance and time when it came to sending

documents.

Thinking back to my previous project it was kind of similar:

Identify scope e.g. how many and where faxes were needed.

Define selection criteria e.g. quality and speed of transmission, single or multiple page

feeds, with or without a handset, pricing etc.

Identify suppliers … these suppliers are also still around today (just like the computer

security companies):

Request for information from suppliers.

Evaluate the most suitable fax machines against specific requirements.

Short list.

Fax machine selection … different specifications for different locations.

Create purchase orders.

Buy machines

Plan a phased roll-out

Roll-out against plan.

Monitor and assess return on investment and a reduction in the overall Mortgage

Application Process.

Apart from a few hic-ups (aren’t there always) the project went well and faxes were installed

in key Survey Offices and Lending Centres and the desired level of efficiency and RoI was

achieved. Whoopeeee!!!

Project 2: Evaluating Saturday-afternoon Branch Opening

Many Abbey National Branches were already

open until 12 noon on a Saturday morning but

there were indications that customers were

coming to Branches late in the morning to

transact before the Branch closed for the

weekend which resulted in long queues. There

were also some reports of customers queuing

outside of Branches and on being denied

entrance after closing time had several angry

exchanges with Branch staff. This clearly was

not something that was wanted.

Again this project had already been started and there were a number of Branches in a pilot

that were open until 3pm on a Saturday PM so my task was two-fold:

Monitoring the pilot Branches that were already open on a Saturday PM.

Determining whether there were any other Branches that could be included in the pilot.

Pilot Branches

Monitoring those Branches that were open until 3pm consisted of analysing statistics sent in

by Branches e.g.:

Transaction profiles … comparing pre and post PM opening hourly transaction profiles to

monitor the shift of transactions from AM to PM.

Queue profiles … hourly customers counts to assess queue lengths to monitor whether there

was a reduction in AM queuing due to shifting transactions.

Customer feedback … qualitative and anecdotal feedback from customers about the benefits,

or otherwise, of PM opening.

Another anecdote for you … because the analysis was painstakingly boring I can remember

listening to music on my Sharpe Cassette Recorder and Headphones. This didn’t impress

my Line Manager because he asked me to stop. Do what? Did it impact the quality of the

work I was doing? No! So what was the problem? Because it did not look professional … oh

dear! Anyway I did has I was asked.

New Branches

Assessing requests from Branches to join the pilot e.g.:

Provision of Saturday AM transaction and queue data to compare with data already held on

Branches in the pilot to determine if profiles were similar.

Branch visits to undertake surveys aimed at both Branch Staff and Customers regarding

Saturday PM opening.

As a result a number of Branches joined the pilot and the continuous monitoring of all pilot

Branches eventually gave the Retail Director enough evidence to conclude that Saturday PM

opening was successful and, importantly, was something that customers wanted. The pilot

scheme was eventually rolled-out to selected Branches on a countrywide basis. What a

contrast to today when there is almost an expectation of a 24/7 service!

So, there we have it, Part 2a of the Life and Times of a Change Manager.

About Ron Leeman

Ron Leeman has been involved in “change and process” work for more years than he cares to

remember. He has worked extensively across the UK, Europe, and globally--and has an enviable track-

record of delivering organisational change and process initiatives across a wide cross section of industry

sectors. In 2012, Ron was bestowed with a “Change Leader of Tomorrow” award by the World HRD

Congress “in recognition of my remarkable progress in initiating changes enough for others in the same

industry to follow my example”. Ron is firm believer in knowledge transfer and now wants to share his

vast knowledge with those who are considering getting into or at various stages of “change” and/or

“process” work or those working on specific Projects wanting to gain practical insights into “how to” type

situations. You can connect with Ron Leeman on LinkedIn here , where you can view his 85+

Recommendations and in excess of 800 Endorsements from clients and co-workers alike to give you an

indication of the quality of service that he has provided and can offer. Ron is also a document author on

Flevy. Browse his frameworks on Change Management, Process Analysis, and Program Management

here: http://flevy.com/seller/highwayofchange .

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