IMA's Implementing Organizational Changes at Speed Blog

One of the barriers to change is a lack of clarity around implementation roles and responsibilities.  What are Change Agents accountable for?  What about Sponsors?  And by "Sponsors" we are talking about the entire management team ranks.  When there is a lack of clarity around accountability, everyone thinks the next guy or gal is the person who is accountable.  As Don Harrison, IMA President, says, "I used to think that this was a problem for Sponsors-- but now I realize that if no one is accountable, it is a very comfortable place to be!"

Just this week, two clients have shared a common and very challenging change management situation. They are about to re-launch ERP systems even though they have attempted to implement the system multiple times in the past without success. These organizations are beginning to see that there is a need for doing something different, although they may not be totally sure what that really means! When implementations fail, there are long-term and short-term costs, and direct and in-direct implications.  All of this points to a business case for a change management methodology that will reduce risk. 

If you are part of a project team assigned to enterprise-wide change you will need to have Change Agents to support the implementation.  Yes, members of the project team will likely be Change Agents, but you will need to build a network as well.  

You've recently been assigned as a Change Agent on an important transformational change project. This change has some significant implications for how people do their work.  There will be new technology, some re-structuring, lots of new business processes.  It's the whole ball of wax.  While it's early, you know you need to build readiness for the transformation. Where do you start? 

Most clients we deal with in our change management consulting have several common challenges.  Certainly there is the Sponsorship challenge.  Second to that, and very much related, is the challenge of implementing cross-functional changes.  At the heart of these cross-functional changes is the expressed (or unexpressed) desire to have the organization operate more collaboratively. 

If you are a Change Agent assigned to a project, do you know who all your Sponsors are? It's a critically important question, and the answer is not necessarily obvious.  In fact, one of the biggest "aha's" from our AIM change management training is that there are far more Sponsors that need to be attended to than what Change Agents originally thought!  

A common barrier to success for organizations seeking transformation is that there is inherent risk-aversion which becomes a cultural barrier to transformational change.  If you are seeking to truly transform you just can’t do it if people are fearful of making decisions and taking some level of risk.  One of the most common pathologies we see in organizations today is that risk-aversion has slowed down decision-making and progress to a virtual crawl. 

Our change management consultants are often brought in on "mission-critical" strategic initiatives that are high risk, and must be implemented to full value realization.  One of the missing pieces we see is that there is no explicit "change architecture" for getting the project implemented.  This change architecture includes the identification and development of change Super Users.  These Super Users are key to building change readiness in all the areas impacted by the change. 

There are many strategic changes that are highly desirable on paper but require a shift in the organization's culture.  Changes like Shared Services, ERP implementations, Business Transformation, and Lean/Six Sigma have great potential upside value but may also go against the grain of the organization's culture.  When you are dealing with a change that has cultural implications, you need to be prepared for one of two options!