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The Leadership Advisor
"The ability to lead well is the defining characteristics of great people and organizations."
April 2006
In This Issue
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See For Yourself . . .
Sean

Perhaps we can view change management as a rock climber along a mountain face; always gripping firmly to the hold he has, yet releasing one hold to find another in order to move forward.

If we wish to move forward toward the top of the cliff, we need a series of good holds. When looking for the next hold on the rock, we must be ready to release the last; even if it has served us well.

Players Ven
By Phil Eastman
Change is such a broad subject that it is often easy to stumble over the word or use it too casually. Over the past few weeks we have worked with several groups on the subject of organizational change which lead me to write this overview.

To capture the broad subject of change we created a three-element model for helping clients lead their change initiatives. The model contains three essential elements of any change effort: Principles, Players, and Process. The graphic presentation of this model shows each of these elements as being distinct from the others while all three overlap significantly. Successfully leading organizational change means proactively embracing and managing all three elements.

There is a profound and challenging truth about the principles of Leading Change. Principles will govern every organization’s change efforts whether they want them to or not. When leaders instigate a change initiative these principles are not negotiable, but they are manageable. The principles of Leading Change are synonymous with the principles or laws of other disciplines. (For instance, engineers know certain rules apply when building bridges or skyscrapers.)

The principles of Leading Change are the same. You can ignore them but you do so at a great cost to you and your organization. These principles will govern every change you as a leader want to instill in the organization.

The Principles of Leading Change are:
  • Organizations are living not mechanical systems
  • Change is an individual and team event
  • Resistance is natural
  • Value systems create context
  • Change has scope
  • The right answer is not enough
  • Communication is everything

The second element of Leading Change revolves around the change players. The Leading Change model anticipates three types of players involved in every successful change effort.

Those players are:
  • Sponsors
  • Teams
  • Individuals
Sponsors are important to effectively leading change. The sponsors of a change initiative must be clear, competent, and credible. The second player is the team. No one individual can make a major project or its associated change effort happen within an organization. It always takes a team to plan and execute the technical and human aspects of a change. Finally, and of critical importance is the individual. Although a team must lead a change, all the human aspects of a change will be processed individually and any change effort must anticipate this human reality.

The third element of Leading Change is process. It has been our experience that many clients who engage in organizational change, fail to understand that there is a process and discreet discipline they need and should engage in to deal with the human aspects of a change initiative. Too many times, the ideas of leading change center on a new strategy, technology, or competitor without regard to the reality that all change is implanted through people. Even with this very basic truth (change is an individual and team event) many leaders look at leading the human aspects of change as an afterthought.

It is my opinion, that this failure to deal with the human aspects of change occurs because people appear messy and out of order during change and thus leaders want to ignore them until they get their act together. Actually, people are very predictable and as such, leaders should not fear engaging the human aspects of leading change, they should embrace them.

However to do so they need a process; the third element of Leading Change. The most comprehensive and detailed organizational change process comes from our friends at Prosci Research. They have a three-component change management process that includes:
  • Preparing for change
  • Managing the change
  • Reinforcing the change
Leading change means understanding the principles that govern change, identifying and equipping the players in the change, and using a coherent process for change implementation. These three elements are critical to effectively and efficiently leading change in your organization.
ADKAR
by Tim Creasey
Now that we understand how individuals go through change, what can we do about it? This is where ‘change management’ comes in to play. Change management means different things to different people, and the term can sometimes carry with it a negative connotation. Sometimes, change management is seen as too soft to really help an organization. However, based on our research, we have defined change management as a set of processes, tools and techniques that can by systematically applied to support individuals through organizational change. Prosci’s organizational change management process is made up of three phases.
  • Preparing for change – in this phase you look at the change, the groups being impacted by the change, the leadership coalition needed to support the change, potential risks and special tactics. The outcome is a strategy that describes the ‘right’ change management for a particular change.
  • Managing change – this is what most envision when they think change management. In this phase, plans are developed for communication, sponsorship, coaching, training and resistance management. These plans can be integrated in to other project plans.
  • Reinforcing change – in the final phase of the process, you gather feedback, audit compliance, diagnose and correct gaps, celebrate successes and transfer ownership, as the new way becomes business as usual.

Getting started
So, where do you go from here? Let’s start with the top three contributors to project success, based on the latest benchmarking study. The number one contributor was active and visible sponsorship, i.e. the role of the leaders who authorized and funded the change (this may be you). Do your sponsors know what it means to actively and visibly sponsor change? Nearly one half of our study participants answered ‘no’. Second, the use of a structured change management process and tool set contributed to project success. These are the types of processes and tools described above for both individuals and organizations. The number three contributor was effective communication – sending the right message, by the preferred sender, through the right delivery mechanism, at the right time and to the right audience.

Now that you know how individuals experience change, the tools that the organization has to effectively manage change and the top three contributors to successful change – get started! If you don’t have the expertise in-house, you can purchase tools or bring in a leadership consultant with exposure to change management to help you create the plans you need to: Improve the results of your changes and mitigate the risk and resistance associated with change.

Tim Creasey is the Director of Strategic Planning at Prosci and is co-author of Change Management: The People Side of Change (available on Amazon). In his five years with Prosci, Tim has written tutorials, developed management processes and tools, designed and instructed webinars, and spearheaded the analysis of the last two change management benchmarking studies. You can find out more at the Change Management Learning Center at www.change-management.com. He is based in Prosci’s Boise office and can be reached at tcreasey@prosci.com.

"Companies that learn to manage change are in the best position to continue to take risks needed to stay out in front." ~ Michael Dell

Leading Change,
Phil Eastman & Lorene Rasmussen
Leadership Advisors Group

phone: (208) 344-0471
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