Gerald Gibson Human Capital Advisor
Gerry has held senior level roles with board involvement and global accountability for leading, coaching and developing Talent, Change Management and Organizational...
Most of us know that one of the “certainties” of life and business is that change is a constant. There are some great models and guidelines for Managing and Leading change available to help organizations, structure, plan and achieve their goals and reasons for changing.
We believe that with most business and human capital processes, there is the “hard science” view and practices as well as practices and behaviors that will support the “artful application” of proven change methodologies because depending upon the culture, the business and people environment, one size does not fit all.
We hope the following will illustrate and provide some food for thought that may help companies and leaders anticipate, plan and lead successful change initiatives.
The Science
- Start at the top (“Guiding Coalition”)
- Create and communicate a compelling business case for change
- Establish KPI’s for measuring progress
- Create a practical communication plan (include the Who, What & When)
- Create a simple, critical path for getting to future state build in reachable milestones
- Consider and communicate how roles may change
- Understand how cross-business interdependencies may change
- Deploy available technology to plan, track and communicate
- Focus on problem prevention not fixing or firefighting
The Art
- Sell the Value proposition of changing to stakeholders (early)
- Paint a clear picture of what is changing
- Listen to and adopt the ideas of stakeholders
- Create & implement Change Champion plans
- Provide frequent status updates
- Understand resistance and how to respond
- Don’t get mired in spreadsheets
- Teach, coach, and mentor
- Be sensitive to “change fatigue”
- Celebrate, Inspire & Challenge