Conscious Leadership

Define Your Change Before It Defines You

Essentially there are three types of change: developmental, transitional, and transformational.* And there are two ways to approach each one: reactively or proactively (consciously). Thus there are six possible scenarios that could define the scope of your organizational change effort. You know where this blog post is heading...

There are two very common "change scope" mistakes executives make in the planning and design stages of major organizational change. Each mistake contributes to 1) the poor failure rate of major change initiatives (70%), and 2) not achieving the return on investment (ROI) the change was intended to deliver (even if the change effort has been declared a success).

The first mistake is inadequately thinking through and analyzing the people and cultural impacts in a holistic manner regardless of the type of change (developmental, transitional, or transformational). This is a sure shot to turning even the most straightforward change (developmental) from proactive to reactive once you reach implementation.

Preparing for implementation (or in the midst of it) is not where you want to discover people disengaged, unwilling, or not supported to make the transition, and a culture not capable or ready to assimilate the change. Re-work of the change design is now needed and implementation is delayed. Reactive change takes longer and costs more. Period.

The second mistake is a misdiagnosis of the type of change required to achieve the business results the change is supposed to deliver. Most often the change is defined too narrowly (i.e., thinking it is developmental and it's really transitional, or believing it's transitional, and it is transformational).

Like mistake number one, misdiagnosis catapults the change effort from proactive to reactive. Only now with too narrowly defined of a scope, the cultural and people impacts overwhelm the content changes (and timeline and budget), cause major re-work of the change design, and significantly increase the risk of failure.

Each type of change requires a different degree of sophistication in dealing with cultural and people aspects - with transformational being the most challenging. For example, transformation implies a fundamental shift in cultural patterns, beliefs, possibly values, and actions, as well as significant change in individual attitudes, behaviors, and skills to adapt to external forces signaling that the status quo is no longer an option for the organization.

And so a word to the wise - consciously define your change effort before it defines you! Whether you think you are doing developmental, transitional, or transformational change, proactively design it with a comprehensive change management plan that accurately assesses the people and cultural impacts at the beginning, and is absolutely realistic about the type of change required for the ROI needed.

* Three types of change defined by Linda Ackerman Anderson.

2009 Copyright © Moore & Associates

No Change Management Without Change Leadership

As an executive today, the likelihood that your organization is undergoing significant change is high. So is the likelihood of failure. McKinsey & Company's latest research reveals 70% of major change initiatives fail. Whether the content of your change includes new technology, reorganization, downsizing, restructuring,  merger or acquisition (or a complex mix of changes) we have found that change leadership as a key component of the change management plan significantly increases implementation success.

Moore & Associates helps leaders lead and manage change and transition. Following are a few of the key change leadership deliverables we provide our clients - you may want to include them in your change management plan:

Develop the change leadership competencies of the senior team.

Position senior managers in key roles within the change initiative that play to each person's strengths.

Facilitate the development of a vision and strategy for the change.

Coach senior managers on how to develop followership for the change and buy-in from staff at all levels.

Provide strategic communication coaching to key senior leaders responsible for communicating all aspects of the change internally and externally.

Instill follow-through mechanisms led by senior managers to ensure course corrections are expedient, successes are celebrated, and the changes stick.

Teach the senior team about cultural and individual patterns of change resistance, how to proactively address them, and why resistance is necessary to get the best outcomes in a major change initiative.

Embed the change management process into the culture, creating a change-resilient organization able to lead and manage on-going future change regularly and more easily.

2009 Copyright © Moore & Associates