|
|
High level change management has two or three spots in the timeline/process where I always feel it is essential to call a conference room late-morning-into-lunch meeting to wrap our arms around the big picture. I do not take forcing the invite lightly. One of the reasons I can be bold enough to take a chunk of first or second horizontal executive time is that an interesting thing always happens…something new, something potentially “viral” (in a good way), something specific to the client organization appears. It appears in the form of a new word (languaging at its core) a diagram,
Continue reading Languaging- another way to stir up energy for change
If as a high level leader, you start with the assumption that CM is about implementing it will dictate the when, the where and the how of guiding the change process. If you are operating vertically and or within a function you might be OK. If however changing is an ongoing and repeating (in many ways) process you will be in trouble with that assumption. In fact you will have an organization that looks like all the rest.
If CM is about implementation then it needs to be at the point in your strategic process where task begins and the
Continue reading Change Management is not about implementation.
Contracting between the actual owner of the change and the external CM practitioner is a crucial piece of the foundation for success. That contract- both the formal written version and the informal initial interaction- lays out expectations, introduces the client to a new and better understanding of the change process and glues the owner to the practitioner in a people and business relationship.
The insertion of anything in the middle of this business and person to person relationship is always detrimental.
Some reasons-
Third parties want to “own” the relationship- their definition of ownership is revenue based. Their way to
Continue reading Engaging a Change Management Consultant-Beware third parties
Look at all the touted, published and marketed change approaches and you will see a pattern. It goes something like this-
Figure it out, find out who needs to be involved with it, get some people to tout it, tell everyone about it, train some people on it, divide it up into phases, push it/force it/coerce it, maybe measure it, get it adopted, make it stick.
Not bad. Many of the things I do with my own approach (which makes sense since my education, experience and exposure is a mix of all of them). Change and projects and tasks and
Continue reading It
The long post will come later, or in an article, this is just to clear the air and point out a trend I see.
Change Management is two things-
The overarching umbrella for the connection between strategy and work. The process within the organization through projects, programs and initiatives that helps facilitate that connection.
The umbrella- I call it Horizontal Change so that this definition is not necessary (Until enough clients and practitioners decide that is a good term we will go with the current confusion). Horizontal Change takes strategy and defines it into end states so that people
Continue reading What is Change Management- becoming?
Millions of dollars are spent each day on OD, training, dealing with resistance, leadership development, change curves, change troughs, steps from 8 to 20 and the strategic implementation of change.
While that is all great stuff and needed, it does not get at the core of the capacity to change again, reinvent, change perspective and move in a different direction.
Which is why most organizations really do not have the ability to absorb transformational change more than once.
They would if they thought always of changing in a horizontal fashion-starting with the first horizontal. If you ask that row how
Continue reading Repeatable Change
There are times that are pivotal opportunities for change.
Leaders must be just as aware of opportunities for change as they are for the need to change.
Let’s set aside the need to change, the desire to change and the management of change and look at opportunity.
First the obvious:
a great idea that takes off (usually in a garage environment) growth- of revenue, size and number of employees a merger a very cool product, service or technology a new, respected leader
The not so obvious:
crises employee resistance layoffs bringing on a high level external consultant retirement of
Continue reading Windows of Opportunity for Change
Clients, whether they are aware of it or not, create all kinds of avenues for going native- and in fact encourage it. Although I will concede it is mostly in the middle of the organization. Things like contract to hire, expecting industry experience for work that is universal, using third parties to acquire consultants and assigning change to a report (usually a Director) all guide the consultant into a native role. Based on these assumptions (I admit they are assumptions) and considering the paring down of resources that has taken place in the last two years, tribal culture,
Continue reading The economy and tribal mentality
Change tends to draw people into creating fortifications- walls, forts, moats and fences. Are they for keeping things out or protection? Do they create hilltop fortresses of safety or islands of isolation? Of course the answers depend on which side of the fortress you are on, inside or outside. On whether you stand to gain or lose by being on either side.
Change management practitioners must be adept at gaining entrance to the fortifications, introducing something of value and leveraging that to agreed upon relaxation of the barrier- maybe a time when the gate is open, maybe an elimination
Continue reading Fortifications- Obstacles for people and change
|
Garrett’s Linkedin profile
|
