Posts Tagged “Change Leadership”

It is fairly predicatable: change teams have challenges developing role clarity. What are the organization leader’s responsibilities? How do leadership responsibilties differ from the management level responsibilties? What is the communicator’s role? What should the communicator expect from leadership?

Here’s a quick review of those roles and their related responsibilities:  http://tinyurl.com/5ov3s5

Creating organizational readiness for change can be illustrated with a story of our child’s first day at school.  We needed to make her, aka – the organization - ”ready,” as she was about to experience the biggest change in her life to date.

So what did the change leader in us do?  Even though I was not a change expert at the time, I certainly didn’t sit her down on Labor Day and say, “Tomorrow, your role in this family is changing and you won’t be in this house most days.” 

We took a much different approach:

• Through the summer, we created awareness that change was coming, and September would be a new and exciting time.
• Helped her understand what school was.  We took her to the school in late August to see her room and meet her teacher.
• Stood at the bus stop with her, and then drove to the school to meet the bus.  In short, we participated in the process of going to school with her.
• “Measured” and celebrated her success so she would exhibit the same behaviors in future days.

The same concepts apply to creating organizational readiness for change in an adult setting.   Create awareness, enable understanding, encourage participation and measure performance.  (I guess the big difference is in the appropriateness of videotaping each second of the change!)

Unfortunately, many organizations have the Labor Day type conversation and expect change to occur overnight.  Those organizations certainly get change – but not the results they wanted.

If you are accountable for your organization’s change program, there are five steps you need to take to ensure success.

1. Fully understand why your organization needs to change. The reasons behind your organization’s need to change will drive many of your decisions. What are the events placing new demands on your organization? Are these events internally – low employee engagement – or externally – downward shifting economic trends – driving the change?
2. Establish what must be done. At this stage you need to:
   • set a vision for the change project
   • define your guiding principles and imperatives to ensure each decision made or step taken on your path to change is the right one
   • set measurable objectives and goals and determine how you’ll measure your progress
3. Plan how the change will roll out:
   • identify the major actions and timing necessary to achieve your objectives.
   • establish the strategies necessary to reach your vision and objectives
   • identify and obtain the resources you need to achieve the objectives.
4. Align senior managers. Granted, the change was likely their idea, but the execution is all yours. You must have them aligned on the how and when of your program. Do this so they walk the talk.
5. Initiate a measurement program to track your progress and adjust plans as necessary. Provide feedback processes to gather information about your progress, and rewards to engage employees.

Plain Jane change builds on existing skills, work practices and behavioral norms.  It involves going from A to B to C.  Transformational change is different – it goes from A to C without stopping at B.  It’s disruptive and creates ambiguity, confusion and turmoil. 

Here is the test:  Simple change is something you can manage, and you might have to tell your boss.  If it is transformational change, your boss’s boss is involved.    Transformational change stretches beyond the boundaries of what you and your boss can manage and control.  It is transformational change when:

• A CEO has to tell not only the Board of Directors, but set expectations with the shareholders as well.
• A group reorganizes / changes business processes / implements new systems that impact not only the group’s members, but creates significant disruption in other groups as well.
• The way forward has myriad obstacles to success.