PALM BEACH Woman ? Betting on Change Management Success

Betting on Change Management Success
Distinguishing the Effective Leaders of Change

In the world of leadership training, conventional wisdom tends to focus on a set of discreet skills, such as thinking strategically, negotiating effectively and inspiring action. ?Of course there are different basic leadership philosophies and many prescriptions for success, often with impassioned personal testimonials. Too often, however, there is an underlying assumption that a strong leadership style inherently includes the ability to lead change. Having spent the last couple decades working closely with clients going through significant organizational change, I believe we are still short changing the focus and attention on this vital quality of a successful leader. Those traditional qualities that point to strong leadership don?t always account for the very organic qualities that make an executive an effective leader of change. A strong leader may have the vision, set the course and inspire others to action. However, the true change leader recognizes that he or she must not only be a leader of change, but a facilitator of change within their organization.

Setting out the vision of where your organization needs to go is just the first step. The real test comes in getting others on board for the ride. I have seen leaders who eloquently set a course for their organization, clearly communicating their goals and organizing the right teams to execute the change. On the surface they are making all the right moves, yet their change effort stalls or even derails. Time after time, change failure stems from an effort that over-rotated on transmitting and underestimated the value of listening and engaging.

Every Interaction is an Opportunity

Change ? whether it is an organizational or structural change, technology transformation or significant culture change ? doesn?t happen without a majority of the people in the organization feeling ownership and being a part of making the change real. Facilitating change versus leading change involves a great degree of tuning in or picking up on the cues occurring in the daily dynamics across the organization. It means asking more questions than delivering messages. It means observing body language in management meetings, in chance encounters in the hallway and in the sentiment between the lines over corporate social networks. Constantly gathering information like this may not seem like strategic business. But it?s sure to unearth the grey areas and pain points that need immediate attention. Such leadership behaviors engage people in the change wherever they may be on the change continuum. For some, engagement can simply mean having a chance to blow off steam and know that someone is listening. For others it means offering constructive criticism or well-deserved praise. A true change leader seizes every interaction as an opportunity to trigger organizational dialogue, stir up healthy peer pressure and drive the change agenda forward.

Harnessing Natural Change Agents

Effective change leaders recognize that they can?t do everything alone and that change management is not just a top-down business, but that it involves identifying the people who are likely to influence their peers. Change leaders recognize how to leverage those natural change agents throughout their organization agnostic of level. Relying solely on cascading communications delivered over the organizations hierarchical chain of command typically results in many pockets of broken channels and misses the opportunity to capitalize on strong communicators that live in every part of the organization. Strong change leaders see their organizations as networks of continually-changing missions and teams, and recognize that there are influencers throughout the network that can serve as force multipliers for both carrying key messages and more importantly, collecting stakeholder feedback critical to informing the continued progress of the change effort.

Leveraging Change Practitioners

Determined change leaders also smartly surround themselves with trained change practitioners. ?They recognize that in addition to putting their own skin in the game and harnessing the organization?s natural change agents, they also need change practitioners skilled in how to effectively coach and facilitate people through the change journey. Skilled change practitioners are multi-disciplinary and leverage a critical mix of theory and practice in such areas as human dynamics, emotional intelligence, strategic communications, human capital, learning and performance management. Armed with this diverse set of skills and practical experience, they are trained to know when and how to apply each to drive successful change. ?They are comfortable with ambiguity, and thrive when asked to navigate complex environments. Change management practitioners also know where to begin. It is just as critical to understand where an organization came from as it is to understand where it is going. Practitioners know how to interpret cultural artifacts (i.e., an organization?s history, leadership legacy, policies, practices, and rewards systems) to determine an organizations? values. These are critical, especially when advising change leaders and ensuring their messages are not merely sent, but received and embraced. ?Effective change leaders use skilled practitioners to complement their leadership and accelerate the change adoption process throughout their organizations. ?Strong change leaders are determined about identifying strengths and gaps in this talent at the front end of the change effort and ensuring the organization?s trained change practitioners have key facilitative roles. ?

Investing in Change Success

Bottom line ? it takes real people to make real change. It won?t be the process design alone or technology that fails, but the odds it will be the impenetrable strength of the collective masses that will nod compliantly at the change but have no intention of being part of implementing it. ??Real leaders of change know this and create a change management approach that involves their personal engagement, a network of change agents at every level of the organization, and ensures skilled change practitioners are embedded. ?With this set of resources, the change leader has invested wisely in making change happen.

??By?Maria Darby

Maria Darby is a Senior Vice President at Booz Allen Hamilton in the Firm?s Strategy and Organization capability, where she is one of the firm?s change management capability leaders. She is a regular instructor for the Change Management Advanced Practitioner (CMAP) program at Georgetown University?s McDonough School of Business, and the Vice President of the Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP), a professional association focused on advancing the practice of change management. To contact her, email darby_maria@bah.com

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Source: http://palmbeachwoman.com/2011/10/betting-on-change-management-success/

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