The Surprised or Reluctant Change Agent
Introduction
It has become apparent you need to, or have just been asked to/appointed to, lead a transformation or change in your organisation.
You have taken ownership because you recognise the need, and/or because you are trusted by those that asked/appointed you to take the responsibility.
You have done, and continue to do a good job in your current role, or project but, what you need to get done now spans beyond your current core competence and stakeholders, and requires organisation and people changes beyond your existing span of control, you are out of your ‘comfort zone’.
There is no time for significant education and training, but the boss, mentor or a colleague has some availability to guide and support, however you are largely on your own and time is limited to get started and completed.
Review this sequence and identify actions that need to be taken at every step, then get going from the start, updating the actions as you go through each phase and learn more about what needs to get done.
Don’t progress from one level to the next until you are satisfied the current level is addressed.
By doing this you will calibrate your change actions to a level that can be absorbed and processed by stakeholders as you move through the change process, in addition you will build Change Capability Maturity.
Stop when there is key stakeholder consensus the transformation/change objective has been achieved and key indicators confirm this achievement.
Guidance
This next generation of change management is based on Dynamic Systems Maturity Theory (DSMT). It complements existing models and knowledge from the likes of 'Kotter', 'Lewin', 'Prosci', 'Covey' & 'Kubler-Ross', but reflects today's more complex and dynamic environment for organisations, and addresses the high failure rates consistently experienced in change programs (circa 70% 'McKinsey').
Establish the need for change and its urgency with a critical network (CN) of key collaborators.
Risk being addressed ‘Motivation to Change’
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Gain consensus amongst CN that decisive action will be taken, to stop any related ‘non value add’ activity or behaviours and, to start the process of change immediately.
Risk being addressed ‘Decisiveness to Act’
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Lead the Critical Network in their generation of a Vision for the Change Outcome, and a concrete Plan to take stakeholders through this phased process of change. Have CN promote and share plan.
Risk being addressed ‘No or Poor Plan’
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Both you and the CN of change leaders walk the talk, and are seen to take action, and support the early actions required in the plan.
Risk being addressed ‘Leader Ownership & Accountability’
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Discipline, Delegation and Performance Management are reinforced by quick-wins, and pilot opportunity implementation while making any learning made visible to stakeholders.
Risk being addressed ‘Management Follow Through’
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Invest in broadening awareness and engagement of stakeholders across the organisation. Ensure leader capability and supports, help people to quickly navigate through Kubler Ross’s pattern of Grief – Shock, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and acceptance, building the Vision towards the Integrative Win-Win.
Risk being addressed ‘Engaging the People’
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Challenge People, Resource Champions, and Pilot Changes. Choose Pilots with best chance of success, or the best relevant learning opportunities that support momentum through the change phases.
Risk being addressed ‘Learning & Adaptation’
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Leveraging Learning from previous phases and pilots, document best practice, create and implement training and development plan, and content, to support scaling engagement in the change initiative(s).
Risk being addressed ‘Competence’
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Formalise process, procedure and related performance management controls. Ensure continuous review and improvement process is embedded, and stakeholders understand and commit to compliance.
Risk being addressed ‘Procedural Reliability’
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CN leads stakeholders in internal and external customer engagement, understanding needs, adapting procedure and metrics, to continuously meet and exceed these needs, compared to alternative options the customer can choose. Adapt reward mechanisms to promote productive internal and external customer satisfaction levels.
Risk being addressed ‘Customer Focus’
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Build trust in the culture as regards internal and external customer competitiveness and care. Continuously review and update performance management, and share benchmark performance and learning. Strengthen process, practice and knowledge sharing leveraging available data and IT systems.
Risk being addressed ‘Boundaries & Silos’
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Ensure project vision, structure, process and culture is adapted and supports empowerment and reward for self-expression, autonomy, Innovation and collaboration. This involves leadership coaching and facilitation, where people now have a sense of ownership for the success, and performance of change. Also it will align actions, core competence building, and outputs to stand out against alternatives available to internal and external customers. Fear of failure is reduced and learning optimised within reason.
Risk being addressed ‘Empowerment’
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Review adapt and update Policy, Process, procedures, systems and controls based on previous phases, where people and teams dynamically influence change in plans, practices and outcomes as self-organising entities, where the core values and value propositions are aligned with the vision and aims of the organisation within the specific change initiative. Update Training and Development programs for stakeholders, and new stakeholder on-boarding provide skills to ensure effective participation.
Risk being addressed ‘Innovation & Autonomy’
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With emerging self-direction, autonomy, innovation and revised supporting governance, Leaders can now be comfortable to spend less time focused on functional detail and action, and more time engaged with Customers, and their leaders internal & external, maximizing win-win value in the organisation and marketplace, facilitating greater Agility and Dynamic responses to opportunities to improve performance and value.
Risk being addressed ‘System Integrity & Advantage’
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Leadership, assure individuals, teams and groups, continuously review, innovate and regenerate their domains within the organisation, its change programs and processes. Internal and external acknowledgement that the programs are the leading benchmark, and a willingness to share and learn from others to maintain leadership position.
Risk being addressed ‘Regeneration & Complacency’
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Summary
The above reference flow of change focus can be explored in an application case example, for an organisation who needed to change its 'Performance Management' process, and its performance. View Case
You can use an OrgCMF™ Triage Assessment as a catalyst with the emerging Critical Network (Your team of change facilitators), to help gain a consistent understanding of the existing change capability of the relevant organisation or change sub group. This facilitates consensus as to how best to approach the change process to gain maximum traction and sustainability and put in place contingencies for the main change process risks.
