By Ben Quintana
As a leader who has both failed and succeeded at leading change initiatives, I've learned a few lessons along the way. Through my personal and professional experiences, I've become intimately familiar with change. I'm willing to bet you can say the same.
Since we know change will surely come, we must learn from the past, and choose to be active leaders of future efforts. After reflecting on my experiences in leadership, the following steps emerged as common themes for success:
- Identify, understand, and validate the need to change
- Confirm personal commitment and develop an initial vision to lead change
- Engage stakeholders and develop a shared vision to support change
- Build momentum and create situations that promote small victories and drive change
- First recruit new leaders, then cultivate others' leadership skills and reinforce culture in order to sustain change
Step 1: Identify, Understand and Validate the Need to Change
"Seek first to understand, then to be understood."
~ Dr. Stephen R. Covey ~
When embarking on a change initiative, it's important to identify and understand the target change. Similar to starting a new business or program, you must clearly state the problem to solve.
Opportunities for change are endless. Anything and everything is subject to change or improvement. Your job as a leader is to determine what is most important to your people or organization, then to shift focus to the root of the problem.
Once the problem statement is apparent, it's important to check and test its validity to confirm your hypothesis. Often, once you identify a problem or think something needs to change, what reveals itself is the fact that what you actually lack is the knowledge or experience to adequately navigate the issues surrounding the necessary change. Do your homework, research the issue and validate the reason change is necessary.
Step 2: Confirm Personal Commitment and Develop Your Initial Vision to Lead Change
"Do or do not. There is no try."
~ Yoda ~
Change is hard. If it were easy, the important and necessary changes would have already happened.
As leaders, our time and resources are limited. We must be strategic with our choices and decisions. Ask yourself if this change initiative is a top priority or if it can wait. Successful change is ineffective if approached with a hesitant heart.
Leaders are drawn to problem solving. We lead because we see a better way. However, we cannot lead effectively being pulled in too many simultaneous directions. We must choose our problems and change initiatives wisely. Commit to lead change or move on to other priorities.
After committing to the change, you must develop a vision statement - a blueprint for what you hope to accomplish through the change initiative. By vision statement, I mean creating a present day description of an ideal future outcome. With your initial vision statement completed, you must continuously communicate it to your current and potential supporters.
Step 3: Engage Stakeholders and Develop a Shared Vision to Support Change
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
~ Margaret Mead ~
Once you've identified the problem and committed to lead the effort, you must identify stakeholders to support the change. One person may lead an initiative, but it takes a team to successfully execute change.
This step is similar to completing a market analysis and formulating a business plan. You must identify supporters (current or target customers), the undecided majority (potential customers and market size), and the skeptics and dissenters (competitors and their loyal customers).
As an example, during the early stages of my campaign, I quickly developed a list of community leaders, friends, and acquaintances I thought would be supportive of my decision to run for office as a councilman. By connecting with this population first, I was able to gain early volunteer support, financial contributions and key endorsements. This was also the time when I was able to develop a vision shared with my constituents that we all hoped to see manifest in our city.
Something I've learned by watching and participating in the creation of city policies is that people willingly support what they helped create. As a leader, you must continually communicate with your supporters and engage them in the process of change.
Step 4: Build Momentum and Create Small Wins to Drive Change
"You manage things; you lead people."
~Grace Murray Hopper ~
Leaders must be great communicators. If your followers and supporters are not privy to what is happening, they may lose hope or begin doubting the likelihood of success.
Once started down the path of change and you're leading others toward realizing the vision, you must communicate milestones, build momentum, and achieve small victories. Similar to the flywheel effect, as described in Jim Collins's book Good to Great, leading change requires an initial thrust with many additional nudges and pushes to drive the flywheel forward. After a time, the flywheel begins to spin faster and faster, until its weight gains enough momentum to propel forward, drawing on its own power.
People look to a leader for proof of early successes in order to trust they are headed down the right path. By continuing to meet expectations and achieve goals - even small incremental victories - you will ignite enthusiasm among supporters while, at the same time, positively influencing undecided stakeholders.
I've learned that ideas, challenges, strategies and opportunities are easy to identify; the real challenge lies in implementing change. Great leaders act as a catalyst by providing the extra nudge or spark necessary to ignite action.
If one wants to learn how to effectively communicate change and build momentum toward transformation, I encourage you to read Dr. David Pate's Blog: Dr. Pate's Prescription for Change - St. Luke's Health System's Journey to Transform Health Care.
Step 5: Develop Other Leaders and Reinforce Culture to Sustain Change
"Leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders."
~ Tom Peters ~
With your change initiative in full effect, you must continue to engage key supporters and find ways to develop other change leaders. This step is the key to leading successful sustainable change.
As a leader, you are responsible for leading multiple change initiatives. Your influence and ability to lead numerous projects simultaneously will depend on your ability to recruit additional leaders. Remember this: the progress of your change initiative is at risk of fading away if others are not ready and able to carry it forward.
Develop and reinforce your values by "walking the talk" and leading by example. Show future leaders what you expect from them by doing what is needed to lead important change initiatives.
The future is ripe with these opportunities. With complex issues surrounding health care and education reform, deteriorating and outdated infrastructure systems, scarcity of clean, abundant and sustainable sources of energy, and a weakened struggling economy, those equipped and prepared to lead change are in high demand.
If you're not leading change, then you're either managing the change process or maintaining the status quo. Leading and managing change are both important to the process, but each situation requires different actions.
Which actions are you taking today to achieve desired outcomes? If you don't have a clear answer to this question and expect to get better results in your personal or professional life, it's time to change your approach.
You can't change everything, but you can change something. Which change initiative will you choose to dedicate your time and resources to? Apply the steps from this article to your next change initiative and keep leading forward.
Ben Quintana serves as an elected official on the Boise City Council in Boise, ID and works as the Organizational Development Program Manager for Leadership Development at St. Luke's Health System.
