Outcome: One Voice
The second change leadership strategy is Select and Align the Leadership Team. This strategy addresses the following reason why change efforts fail.
Why Change Efforts Typically Fail: Reason 6
6. The change leadership team does not include early adopters, resisters, or informal leaders.
Select the change leadership team. It is not possible to bring about change in an organization with a single leader. As David Nadler says, “The scope of today’s changes is too much for one CEO—even a very charismatic one—to pull off alone.” Change requires a strong and broad-based change leadership team that is aligned and that speaks with one voice to the larger organization.
The outcome is a unified message that minimizes ambivalence
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In Chapter 10, “Situational Team Leadership,” we described the importance of teamwork and how to build a high performing team. How do you build a change leadership team?
First, it is important to select both sponsors and day-to-day change leadership team members. A sponsor is an executive who can legitimize the change and who has the formal authority to deploy resources to support the initiation, implementation, and reinforcement of the change. A member of the change leadership team is responsible for the day-to-day leadership of the change—
the execution of the change leadership strategies described by the Leading People Through Change Model.
As you identify potential sponsors and members of the change leadership team, consider whether they possess the skills and traits required to lead change. Consider the following questions:
• Have they led or been part of successful change efforts in the past?
• Do they have the time and availability required of a change leader?
• Do they have the respect of their peers?
• Are they highly skilled?
• Are they willing to play the role of devil’s advocate?
• Are they effective communicators who are willing to raise the concerns of colleagues who may be less inclined to play devil’s advocate?
• Do they have the diversity necessary to think outside the box and come up with the best solutions to challenges that arise?
In our child support example, it was critical that the change leadership team include county clerks representing a diverse set of counties across the state: rural and urban counties, a county already using computers to track non-support-paying parents, a county using only pen and paper to track non-support-paying parents, a county with good performance regarding collection of
Strategies for Leading a Change
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child support, and a county with poor performance regarding collection of child support.
The change leadership team should be a representative sample of the organization—advocates and resisters, formal and infor- mal leaders, and leaders at all levels of the organization.
It’s important to embrace the resisters of a change effort. We once worked with a company where a manager appeared to be very resistant to the changes being proposed by the executive team. This manager had lots of credibility within his department and could sway people to support or block the change. Once the executive proposing the changes allowed this manager to be involved in many of the decisions regarding the change and to take an active leadership role, this manager ended up being one of the strongest supporters and leaders of the change. It’s been said that
Those who plan the battle rarely battle the plan.
It’s also important to include a variety of perspectives and roles that represent the entire organization on the change leader- ship team. This way, various perspectives can be surfaced and worked through before final decisions are made. Although it may feel uncomfortable at first, it is very helpful to include at least one or two people who would be considered “resistant” and who can articulate the concerns of those who share that perspective.
When you include a representative sample of the organiza- tion, people throughout the organization feel that their point of view and concerns are being heard. A diverse team also means that there are more opportunities for advocates to be in contact with people who are neutral, before they become resistant. When resisters have a forum to surface and address their concerns, they often become the most effective problem solvers and spokespeople for the change.
Align and build a high performing change leadership
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increases opportunities for involvement and influence, consider how important it is for this to be a high performing team. It is extremely damaging to an organization when its leaders are not on the same page and communicate inconsistent messages to the organization during times of change.
We worked with an organization where the top executive was trying to get buy-in from his executive team for a series of changes. Some of his team did not agree with what was proposed.
Although there were meetings to discuss the changes, one execu- tive did not voice his concerns. By being silent, he implied that he supported the change leadership team’s recommendations and that he would communicate a consistent message to his people.
Instead, the team member chose to publicly criticize the top exec- utive and the changes that were being proposed to members of his department. He tried to subvert the change outside the change leadership team.
When people see a lack of alignment at the top, they know they don’t have to align. In addition, they know that without align- ment, the change will stall or derail and that they can outlast it. In this example, as a result of his actions, the subversive executive was fired. The team members agreed to this action during the team chartering session. It sent a strong message about alignment to the whole organization. It is important to note that the execu- tive was fired as much for not voicing his concerns to his team as for disparaging the top executive and the proposed changes.
While it may not always lead to someone being fired, commu- nication of inconsistent messages during a change effort results in people freezing and waiting for the leaders to sort out the inconsistencies. Negative spin from one member of a change leadership team will kill a change effort. Again, with a broad, diverse team, there are more people to communicate, but the challenge is to get them to communicate one message and to get them to listen as much as talk when they communicate.
Remember: Sustainable organizational change happens through conversation and collaboration, not by unilateral action by a few.
Strategies for Leading a Change
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