Middle managers tend to be quite good at maintaining business. They work at maintaining adherence to procedures. They make certain employees stay in conformity with procedure. They try to establish stability in the workplace. Middle management has a tough time with business change because the balance of the work environment is disturbed. Getting middle managers on board with change is very important. One approach to this, named Quad A, can be a very effective means of doing just that.
Quad A is a four step process of assessment, analysis, affirmation, and authorization. When change teams lead managers through this process, it helps to garner more willing acquiescence to the need for 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 accomplished by establishing comprehension of the intent of the change. Then the business case needs to be presented to them. Going over the impact to responsibility areas follows the business case. 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. The purpose of this is to understand the concerns so that solutions can be created. The flip side is that there is an expectation that the managers will line up behind the change and participate in solution development for the noted objections. These expectations must be backed by authority above the middle managers, in the event that compliance has to be compelled.
The next stage, Analyze, is devoted to plan analysis. This is where impact assessments, risk analysis, and risk mitigation planning occurs. Since business stops for no man or woman, a business continuation game plan needs to be put into place. Here, it is advisable to identify those who will be effected by the change and their accountability level. The analysis should not be brought to a close until all of the managers are prepared to give a stamp of approval to the business change.
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.” They then need to affirm that the implementation plans are complete and the resources are in place for it.
The final piece of the model is to authorize. This is where middle managers actually commit themselves. They are asked to authorize the business change in writing. They send that authorization to the change team and 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. As there are always unpredicted problems during change, the middle managers and frontline supervisors will reach an agreement about resolving those problems as they occur.
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. With luck, the key, middle managers will have effectively resolved the vast majority of problems before the change initiative is ever presented to the whole of middle management.
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