9 Requirements for an Effective Change Leadership Strategy
Hello!
I hope that you are safe and well. Today is a very exciting day because we are continuing our 4-part series of Transformational Change! This is obviously a monumental moment whereas the entire world is amid the transformation.
We kicked off our 4-part series of Transformational Change with Part One, Individual Transition & Change.
In this video, we will address Part Two, Steps to develop an Effective Change Leadership Strategy.
Next week, we will address the Pitfalls to Avoid to Lead Change Successfully.
Lastly, we will address, The Ways to Increase Change Maturity Throughout your Organization.
Today’s topic is very important because any change management starts with the Change Strategy that comes from Leadership. If the Change Strategy is faulty, any attempt to effectively manage change will encounter problems. The Change Leadership Strategy is the foundation of the house that is built through change management. If you have ever seen a structure built, then you know that a faulty foundation will lead to critical problems throughout the building of that structure.
There are nine very important elements to address when developing the Change Leadership Strategy.
1. Understand the Burning Platform and know how much fire truly exists. The burning platform is the largest reason for the change. It implies that there is a serious danger if the change does not happen. The burning platform should be so obvious that no matter who you tell, they are able to understand the benefits of the change and the risk of the change not being successful.
2. Ensure that the Vision and related Goals for the Change are clear. Borrowing from the wise words of Kotter, there are certain checklist items that are needed to ensure that your Vision clear and makes sense.
It is simple to understand and clearly Focused on a specific direction or thing.
It is communicable. If it is simple and clearly focused, then it should be easy to communicate it to others and they should easily be able to understand it.
It is imaginable. It is a believable idea. If you cannot get others to believe in the idea, then how are you going to get them to participate in it? It takes more than one person to make an organization transformation happen…
It is desirable. This means that people see what is in it for the organization and hopefully what is in it for them. They can see the benefits.
It is feasible. This means that the Vision is doable. You have done the due diligence and research to ensure that the vision can actually be implemented successfully.
Lastly, you want to ensure that your vision is flexible. A vision is an idea, a picture. It is not the implementation itself. When you are embarking on something new then you must expect the unexpected and anticipate the need to adapt and be flexible with what may be required for success.
3. All alternatives should be identified, vetted, and compared to the vision based upon costs and benefits. This ensures that the organization is truly making the best decision and is prepared to address inevitable skepticism that will arise.
4. The Sponsors for the transformational effort are identified, present, powerful, and known. For an organization to make a change that affects the entire workforce, the sponsors, those who are leading the change must be well-respected and have authority within the organization. It helps when such authority includes, position authority, for example, a COO, they have financial authority so they can put money forward to support the effort and they have people authority, in the sense that people respect them and like them and want to support them. The presence of the right sponsors in a change effort can make or break the success of a change.
5. The potential investment is clear. Anyone who has led an enterprise-wide organizational change knows that the costs and investments required will fluctuate beyond the initial prediction. This is why the Agile approach is so popular. However, when we do our due diligence, we can often be in the ballpark of what the costs will be.
Given that, we want to understand what investments will be necessary for this transformational change to be successful?
What amount of TIME will be required?
How many PEOPLE will need to be working on the effort?
What TECHNOLOGY will be needed to make it happen?
Ultimately, what will the MONEY investment need to be for success?
6. Similarly to the sponsors, you will need to choose the team wisely. The team will typically be made up of many teams. You will have the project team, an advisory team, etc. You want to ensure that you have the right subject matter experts, the right champions who will be your power messengers and team evangelists, and the right influencers involve to truly implement, institutionalize the change, and make it doable for the masses of the organization.
7. You want to ensure that the organization chooses the change approach that is right for the organization. The change approach should honor the values of the organization, not go against them.
Does the organization make decisions on a consensus basis or top-down way?
Does the organization operate in a highly centralized manner or de-centralized manner?
Does leadership keep information close to the chest or is more transparent regarding why things are being done?
Does the organization trust the people with the information upfront or do they typically snowball efforts little by little?
Regardless of what is right or wrong, you are going to need to ensure that you are going with the grain of the organization and not against it. Unless going against the grain is part of an overall cultural transformation, in itself.
8. Like the approach, timing needs to reflect what is doable within the specific organization, its culture and capacity. The timing should take the level of change maturity of the organization into consideration. We will talk about organizational change maturity in the next video. You want to consider if the change will be:
Incremental or Radical? Obviously less change mature organizations may need more incremental change instead of all at once.
Immediate or Later? Is this a transformation that needs to be sold for a couple of years before it's accepted? Or immediately starting to roll out.
Is it going to be rolled out very slow or very fast? Again, the change maturity should inform this.
Is the timing going to flexible and adapt to organizational changes or inflexible and timelines held regardless of what happens?
Finally, what will be the tolerance for individual transitioning? How much patience will be given for an individual to adapt attitude and/ or new capabilities?
These are timing approaches that you want to have clear in your change leadership strategy.
9. What assumptions can you make at the front end of the change effort? The more assumptions that you understand about what is going to happen, the more prepared that you will be. You can make assumptions by doing your research, your diligence including your benchmarking with similar transformations that have taken place within your organization or similar organizations. Some example assumptions include:
The business model will change.
Technology systems will change.
Processes will change.
Departments will be reorganized.
Workforce will need to be augmented.
Customer training will be needed.
Employee training will be needed.
There will be planned business interruptions.
There will be unplanned business interruptions.
There will be a specific dollar limit.
There will be a specific time limit.
Etc.
You want to be clear on whatever assumptions that may exist, earlier than later.
Those are the nine elements that are necessary for a comprehensive change leadership strategy.
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