Proven Strategies for Leading Through Change Management
Highlights
Given today’s dramatic acceleration in product and business cycles, change management has become an essential discipline for every organization.
For change to succeed, leadership is key, which is why Prime 8 consultants have developed a set of proven techniques for empowering leaders to implement change management strategies.
Our work on change management leadership ranges from one-on-one coaching to addressing the underlying structural changes needed to help people engage, collaborate, and innovate in the modern workplace.
Take a close look at the practice of management today, and it’s evident that a lot of it boils down to change management. Advances in technology, interconnected global markets, constantly evolving consumer preferences — each has its individual impact, but collectively they are responsible for accelerating business and product cycles. Dealing with this requires an array of change management strategies.
CUSTOMIZING CHANGE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES
At Prime 8, we find that more and more of our engagements involve empowering leaders with the tools they need to innovate, adapt, and take action in uncertain and continuously changing markets. We help clients build the capabilities for leading through change by implementing an effective change management process.
Our leadership work ranges from one-on-one executive coaching engagements — customized to help managers and leaders with their specific development needs — to addressing the underlying structural changes needed to help people effectively engage, collaborate, and deliver results in the modern workplace.
We adapt our approaches, tackling the specific challenges faced by leaders and inspiring individuals to deliver the unique contributions that drive team performance.
The Role of Effective Leadership in Change Management Strategies
WHY LEADERSHIP MATTERS
Change management evolved as a discipline out of the recognition that organizational change is never easy to accomplish. Whether it’s learning a new skill, implementing a new technology or shifting from remote to hybrid work — change is a challenge.
It means addressing processes and routines that may be so automatic that you take them for granted. Change requires a leap of faith — confidence that a process you don’t fully understand today will lead to real benefits tomorrow.
For all of these reasons and many more, change management requires leadership.
Leaders set the direction, establishing the change management framework needed to communicate the vision and lay out the steps for how to get from here to there. It’s the leader’s job to inspire and mobilize employees and other stakeholders to commit to the change.
Leaders must manage the inevitable resistance, create a supportive environment, and ensure that the necessary resources — budget, personnel, technology—are available to support a change initiative.
Leadership is the single most important factor in managing change. According to the Project Management Institute, one in four organizations (26%) report that inadequate sponsor involvement is the primary cause of failed projects.
It’s important to understand that when a change initiative fails because of lack of leadership, it’s not necessarily a personal failure on the part of the leader. Often, it’s the leadership structure that’s the culprit.
For example, we worked with a global software giant that had a management structure consisting of six different leadership teams. During the early stages of the company’s growth, this structure worked well. The leaders collaborated closely and were able to jointly articulate a clear vision to their individual teams.
But as the company grew in size and scope, the collaboration between leaders diminished. The vision they articulated to their teams became narrower. Over time, the company found that its ability to respond to marketplace demands got slower, not faster.
Working directly with all six leadership teams, our consultants developed a set of strategies and tools, such as playbooks and templates, that re-established joint collaboration, planning, and reporting to create a foundation for renewed growth.
Building a Resilient Team for Change
Change management is often described as the “people side” of project management. Instead of being focused on budgets and milestones, change management focuses on helping individuals and teams understand, accept, and embrace changes effectively.
ACTIVATING TEAM PERFORMANCE
At Prime 8, we help organizations engage their employees and harness their unique contributions. One of the key steps toward accomplishing this goal is to ensure that every contributor understands his or her role and expectations. Take the time to clearly identify each person’s place on the team, outlining their deliverables and areas of focus.
This may seem simplistic, but it’s foundational — we’ve identified it as one of five best practices for boosting team performance.
TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
As the workforce goes through seismic shifts in demographics, technology, and mobility, it puts new pressure on how organizations help their employees acquire the skills they need to innovate and stay competitive.
In a nutshell, organizational transformation requires new approaches to how organizations help their people learn and grow, both professionally and personally.
For example, we recently consulted with a multinational technology provider that develops workplace collaboration solutions that businesses can use to increase the accessibility of their employees.
The client discovered it had done a great job of developing and enhancing its solutions, but a poor job of educating its sales reps on how to have accessibility conversations with customers.
To address the situation, we designed and developed a Virtual Academy, an eight-part 200-level massive open online course (MOOC) available to employee learners across the globe from nearly any device. The course featured sophisticated capabilities that drove learner skill acquisition and engagement.
Operational Aspects of Change Management
While change is difficult, it’s also exciting, inspirational, and visionary. Leaders need to work hard to ensure that the vision is internalized and acted upon across the organization.
But leaders also have to balance the visionary side of change management with the practical side. At its heart, change management is also a business operation and needs to be managed as one. Let’s take a look at a few important considerations.
MANAGING RISKS AND MITIGATIONS
A practical approach to change management starts with identifying, assessing, and prioritizing risks and taking proactive steps to minimize the impact of those that are deemed serious.
At Prime 8, we find that any change management effort needs to be accompanied by tools such as risk matrices and business intelligence (BI) dashboards.
QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN CHANGE INITIATIVES
Quality control measures and quality management systems are also important in change management. Here, we find that it’s often best to focus on repeatable processes — those that are already well established and standardized.
PERFORMANCE METRICS AND KPIS
Right from the start, establish performance measurement and KPIs for gauging the success of change management. Track these metrics on your BI dashboard, and don’t be afraid to make adjustments over time and/or further adapt dashboards to the needs of different stakeholders.
What Change Management Strategies Are Right for You?
Change is constant — and so is the leadership needed to make a change management plan a success. But every organization is different when it comes to innovating and adapting to rapidly changing conditions. Change management is a flexible discipline that allows you to focus on the challenges that are specific to your organization and then adapt as you, inevitably, experience even more change.
What are your strategy objectives when it comes to change management? Talk to Prime 8. Let’s find the path to help you build and maintain your commitment to leading through change. Contact us today.
