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A comment and a question I get at every cocktail party when my career is revealed-
That must be fascinating! (it is!)
Do you feel helpless most of the time? (yes but not for long)
My role is at times like the backup quarter back (when there is little chance for needed structural adjustment) and other times like a coach. A coach must stand on the sidelines and hope planning and description translates into strategy and action. They lead but they are not the true leader, the quarterback is. They must survey the big picture while others focus in on task. They work less as a team member than as a giant set of arms holding it all together.
The holidays bring people back to town from all over. Deep down project manager (and thanks to a previous life as sous chef, waiter, cook etc) that I am the gathering is typically at my home. Small gatherings they are not. Two leaves in the table and 14 friends from three decades back and the 2009 holidays are in full swing.
My family is used to these spontaneous gatherings with a role for each. We sometimes switch but we each have our specific skills. Often guests show up early just to be involved with the excitement and energy of the event. They soon find their forte too, to the point that they may take a specific process as their responsibility- maybe the desert or the appetizer or getting the table pretty and fancy.
Change Management big, broad and transformational requires every helpful resource possible, but not all resources. It requires leadership but not too much control. It requires energy and motivation, but with the right skill set and competencies at the right time ("championing" has gotten old and tired for stakeholders and those marked to be the cheerleaders) and it necessitates a balance of internal and external.
High level change consultants if they are effective, are focused on business objectives, value for the client and clear end states. Internal resources, change agents and the PMO along with the stakeholders, know the path (internal politics, established processes of communication and collaboration, reporting structures).
This is a preview of Structuring Massive Change as an Entity- What are the roles? . Read the full post (383 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)
I took a break from change for half the day yesterday and chaperoned my daughter (8 years old-third grade) on a field trip.
We went to a local farm-Forest Hill Farms in Danville, CA- to learn about agriculture in the Tri-Valley at the turn of the century.
In one module the kids (and me) learned about canning and had the opportunity to draw their own label. And that is where I quickly returned to my change management environment.
I was struck by the many approaches. And fascinated by the connection to similarities with adults “drawing” up change.
One of the key elements of change failure and stakeholder disillusionment (read faster failure next time) is the practice of throwing initiatives into functions.
- Transformational change into HR (death by irrelevance).
- Technology change straight to IT (slow, painful death from legacy systems and behaviors)
- Supply Chain change to Marketing (confusion before death by the external partner/sales firewall)
- CEO reorganizational change to the succession plan groomee (death by internal politics)
- Merger and downsizing change (death by experts in the culling of people)
This is a preview of Vertical Change Perspective- Measures of failure . Read the full post (167 words, estimated 40 secs reading time)
Ruffle feathers Contrarianism
There is a square peg into a round hole perspective with change management that jumps out of everything I see written.
It is an approach to change that relies on pushing, coaxing, forcing, driving, convincing rather than understanding, leadership, empathy and clearly defined end states. It is a perspective that guides everything that happens in change management and it has worked its way into the executive suite. It is based on two factors straight from Kotter (whose approach has a strangle hold on the change management community and by extension their clients).
Overcoming resistance
This is a preview of CEO perspective on change- Even McKinsey is following the status quo . Read the full post (483 words, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)
One of the things I look for with change engagements is whether or not plans, actions, behaviors and approaches are based on assumptions. Yes, of course, always.
As a manager, how do you get your staff to buy-in to a senior management strategy when neither you nor your staff like the strategy?
http://preview.tinyurl.com/melpbe
This question on LinkedIn illustrates a common change obstacle. It has many mini obstacles, but we will take the main one. “Staff” will not support a strategy and their supervisors join in.
The chosen “best” answer is classic. Facilitation, firing, but basically communication is at the core of the problem.
This is a preview of Assumptions-Collaboration that does not work . Read the full post (391 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)
Why
Because there is so much that is fundamentally wrong with the current/historical change management approaches. Much more later-
First promise is a contrarian viewpoint.
Anything that is big as change can be scary, overwhelming and confusing-
Second promise is to simplify change management.
I have a passion for both people and business objectives. Both are necessities for change. And both get sanded down by methodologies and theory.
Third promise is to provide valuable insight from both client and consultant perspectives.
This is a preview of Vision to Work- Contrary, Simplified and Insightful Enterprise Change Management . Read the full post (460 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)
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