The three in ten method: A practical tool for managing change
(First published in Internal Communication Issue 60, November 2000)

by Jonathan Steffen

Whether planning a corporate relocation or developing a rebranding strategy, business leaders need to keep their messages simple to cut through the noise of an ever more complex operating environment. Jonathan Steffen proposes a straightforward and powerful methodology to help decision-makers deal with the challenges of change even as the ground is shifting underneath them.

The search for square one

In an ideal world, change management projects would start at square one and proceed through squares two, three, four and so on to their inexorable completion. The basic objectives would be clarified from the outset, budget would be set aside, responsibilities defined, methods selected, resources allocated, deadlines approved and measurement criteria agreed – and the project would evolve from planned stage to planned stage, from numbered square to numbered square, with supreme mechanistic irreversibility.

We do not live in an ideal world.

We live in a real world, which is to say a very messy, complicated, confused one in which many things happen in the wrong order and many more appear to happen in no order at all. It is in this world that the change project has to be implemented. Whether it involves a corporate restructure or a repositioning exercise, the relocation of staff or the re-engineering of business processes, we can be sure that it will not start at square one.

Stand and deliver

It might start at square three. It might start at square ten, or square seventeen, or even square thirty-two. Attempts might have been made to start and restart it at square twenty-one (gridlocked with new legislation) or square three (strewn with cultural incompatibilities) or square fourteen (besmirched with staff defections). One thing is clear, however: whatever the history of the project – and of the projects which in turn gave rise to that project – the people responsible for it now will have to deliver certain results, and will be judged by their ability to do so.

For people involved in change management, therefore – whether their role is an in-house or a consultancy one – one of the keys to success is being able to approach a complex set of issues with the openness of mind and the clarity of vision which the ‘square one’ position confers.

The three in ten method is a way of achieving this.

Its underlying philosophy is based on the observation that the human mind cannot effectively process more than three concepts at any one time.

In mathematical terms, the number three is the first number which allows the mind to recognise sequence and pattern: 1 followed by 2 is a sequence, but its nature is not yet clear, whereas 1 followed by 2 followed by 3 is a sequence whose nature is clear (1 followed by 2 could be followed by 3 if each digit in the sequence increases by a value of 1 and by 4 if each digit increases by doubling). This is why jokes are usually tripartite in structure (‘An Englishman, a Frenchman and a German went into a bar …’) and why our language is full of triads such as ‘by bell, book and candle’ and ‘every Tom, Dick and Harry’.

The three in ten method involves the study of a problem in terms of ten key areas of focus. These are:

• Ownership
• Budget
• Timeframe
• Capacity
• Models
• Streamlining
• Innovation
• Processes
• Communication
• Measurement

Experience suggests that any change management project - and indeed, most business projects of any kind - will require these issues to be addressed. Who has ownership of the project? What budget has been allocated for it? What is the timeframe for completion of the project? What capacity is available to implement it? What model or models should be employed in its implementation? What has to be abandoned in order for the project to take place? What is the role of innovation in the project? What processes will have to be employed or developed? What will have to be communicated, and how should this take place? And finally, how should the success and cost-effectiveness of the project be measured?

What happens, however, when the ownership of a project changes half-way through its course? A promotion, secondment or resignation can leave a project bereft of thought leadership and managerial guidance. Who sets the milestones if the project head is no longer heading the project? Who signs off the budget? Who ensures that the project team collaborates effectively?

By the same token, a project might be proceeding smoothly, on time and to budget, when an unexpected innovation calls its very existence into question. If competitor X is suddenly offering the miracle solution towards which your company has been working for months or even years, what should you do? Continue your project in the belief that you will eventually arrive at a yet improved miracle solution? Abandon the project completely? Seek to forge a strategic alliance with competitor X which will give you access to the benefits of the miracle solution while absolving you of the development costs?

One could continue, but the point is clear: whatever stage your project has attained, the unexpected can knock it off course at any second and leave you desperately searching for a square one from which to get your bearings.

The response offered by the three in ten method is to take your square one with you.

The procedure is very simple. Review your project under the above ten aspects. From among those ten aspects select the three which have incontrovertible priority. Focus on these three and initiate a sub-project to bring about a satisfactory solution. For instance, at the outset of the project, the issues of ownership, timetable and models might be the burning ones to address, while budget has already been earmarked and capacity allocated (see Fig. 2).

By contrast, the challenges of communicating the value of an innovation and of measuring that communication effort might be more important towards the end of a project (see Fig. 3). Once the solution has been found, repeat the review process. You will inevitably focus on different issues, and their significance will have been affected by the solution already found.

Top of page

Previous Page