By: Leslie Allan
You may have been selected by your executive to initiate and see through some change program in your organization. Or you may have decided that the time has come to make your mark by dusting off the cobwebs in your workplace. However your change role came about, you have a challenging task ahead of you.
Consider this sobering thought. In spite of the importance of successfully implementing job place change for maintaining your business’s competitiveness, most change initiatives fail to deliver the expected organizational benefits. This failure occurs for a number of reasons:
Consider this sobering thought. In spite of the importance of successfully implementing workplace change for maintaining your business’s competitiveness, most change initiatives fail to deliver the expected organizational benefits. This failure occurs for a number of reasons:
• absence of a change champion or one who is too junior in the organization
• poor executive sponsorship or senior management support
• poor project management skills
• hope rested on a one-dimensional solution
• political infighting and turf wars
• poorly defined organizational objectives
• change team diverted to other projects
Do you recognize one or more of these in your organization from previous initiatives? You have probably experienced already one major cost of such failure. The cynical and burned out employees left behind only make the next change objective even more difficult to accomplish. It should come as no surprise that the fear of managing change and its impacts is a leading cause of anxiety in managers.
Your first step in becoming a successful change leader is fully understanding your organization and matching the initiative to your organization’s real needs. This means not just adopting the latest management fad. Recognize that bringing about useful and meaningful change is fundamentally about changing people’s behavior in certain desired ways. It is not primarily about installing a new system or rearranging the organizational structure. If people in the end do not behave and work differently, then the money and time spent in “doing stuff” is wasted.
You will see from the above list of reasons for failure that lack of technical expertise is not the main impediment to successful change. Leadership and management skills, such as visioning, prioritizing, planning, providing feedback and rewarding success, are key factors in any successful change initiative. Concentrate on these skills that will help you get people on board and to keep them on board for the life of the project and beyond. Get your mentor or a training consultant to perform an honest gap analysis on your skill set and then get the coaching or training that you need.
Whatever change program you are implementing, one key area in which you need to pay close attention is the identification and management of your change program stakeholders. A stakeholder is any person with an interest in the change process or the outcome of your proposed change. Be politically savvy. Your stakeholders will bring a mix of competing interests and will often act to further their own power, influence and survival. An added challenge for you as change leader is that such political maneuvering is often disguised as impartial and rational argument. Think about who are your major stakeholders. Think about what you will say to them to get each of them on side. When you have done that, write up a stakeholder communication plan and make sure you follow through.
Another essential jobs activity you would do well to not neglect is setting clearly defined and measurable objectives. Goal setting done well engages stakeholders and commits them to the program. Other benefits include focusing effort to where it is important and providing a yardstick for measuring program success. Are your program’s goals fuzzy and hard to put a finger on, or are they specific and measurable? Do they link to the strategic objectives of your organization? Get all of the key stakeholders to work with you in devising the goals that will define the success of your program. Getting their input during the initial stages will give them a genuine “stake” in your program.
Get your info for job vacancy ini Indonesia.
© Leslie Allan. All rights reserved.
You may have been selected by your executive to initiate and see through some change program in your organization. Or you may have decided that the time has come to make your mark by dusting off the cobwebs in your workplace. However your change role came about, you have a challenging task ahead of you.
Consider this sobering thought. In spite of the importance of successfully implementing job place change for maintaining your business’s competitiveness, most change initiatives fail to deliver the expected organizational benefits. This failure occurs for a number of reasons:
Consider this sobering thought. In spite of the importance of successfully implementing workplace change for maintaining your business’s competitiveness, most change initiatives fail to deliver the expected organizational benefits. This failure occurs for a number of reasons:
• absence of a change champion or one who is too junior in the organization
• poor executive sponsorship or senior management support
• poor project management skills
• hope rested on a one-dimensional solution
• political infighting and turf wars
• poorly defined organizational objectives
• change team diverted to other projects
Do you recognize one or more of these in your organization from previous initiatives? You have probably experienced already one major cost of such failure. The cynical and burned out employees left behind only make the next change objective even more difficult to accomplish. It should come as no surprise that the fear of managing change and its impacts is a leading cause of anxiety in managers.
Your first step in becoming a successful change leader is fully understanding your organization and matching the initiative to your organization’s real needs. This means not just adopting the latest management fad. Recognize that bringing about useful and meaningful change is fundamentally about changing people’s behavior in certain desired ways. It is not primarily about installing a new system or rearranging the organizational structure. If people in the end do not behave and work differently, then the money and time spent in “doing stuff” is wasted.
You will see from the above list of reasons for failure that lack of technical expertise is not the main impediment to successful change. Leadership and management skills, such as visioning, prioritizing, planning, providing feedback and rewarding success, are key factors in any successful change initiative. Concentrate on these skills that will help you get people on board and to keep them on board for the life of the project and beyond. Get your mentor or a training consultant to perform an honest gap analysis on your skill set and then get the coaching or training that you need.
Whatever change program you are implementing, one key area in which you need to pay close attention is the identification and management of your change program stakeholders. A stakeholder is any person with an interest in the change process or the outcome of your proposed change. Be politically savvy. Your stakeholders will bring a mix of competing interests and will often act to further their own power, influence and survival. An added challenge for you as change leader is that such political maneuvering is often disguised as impartial and rational argument. Think about who are your major stakeholders. Think about what you will say to them to get each of them on side. When you have done that, write up a stakeholder communication plan and make sure you follow through.
Another essential jobs activity you would do well to not neglect is setting clearly defined and measurable objectives. Goal setting done well engages stakeholders and commits them to the program. Other benefits include focusing effort to where it is important and providing a yardstick for measuring program success. Are your program’s goals fuzzy and hard to put a finger on, or are they specific and measurable? Do they link to the strategic objectives of your organization? Get all of the key stakeholders to work with you in devising the goals that will define the success of your program. Getting their input during the initial stages will give them a genuine “stake” in your program.
Get your info for job vacancy ini Indonesia.
© Leslie Allan. All rights reserved.
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