One of the common questions that comes up in our change management consulting work is why the organizational climate for transformational change matters. The reason why you need to fully understand your organization's current climate is simply because that is the environment in which you will be implementing the transformation. In common language, "It is what it is."
Whether your organization is seeking to implement transformational change or "garden variety" changes, you are going to be confronted with a simple but compelling choice. You can either invest in readiness for change, or pay for it in resistance. There are no other options!
One of the common strategic changes we see in our change management consulting is the attempt to implement EPMOs (Enterprise Program Management Offices.) Why the interest in EPMOs? What problem is the EPMO trying to solve? For many organizations, the establishment of an EPMO is an attempt to drive greater collaboration across the enterprise and overcome the traditional silos. This is an admirable objective, but what does it take from a change management consulting perspective?
Most transformational change management plans rely heavily on communication as the cornerstone of the plan. Based on our thirty plus years in the trenches of global organizations, we have seen what communication techniques actually create "speed bumps," and which techniques can be employed as "accelerators."
If you are serving in an internal change management consulting role, there is great value in having a set of core principles guide your way. We tell our clients that the AIM change management methodology principles are like an electronic dashboard in your car; if your windshield wiper fluid is low, you react one way. If your Check Engine light appears, that is an entirely different matter!
One of the greatest challenges of transformational change is getting people to let go of the old ways, and adopt the new changes. Unless this happens, there is no real transformation-- simply stated, if there is no behavior change, there is no transformation.
How closely does your change management methodology link to real project work? If it is divorced from what is viewed as the "real work" of the organization, that's a problem! If project managers view the change management methodology as a responsibility of HR and not part of their own accountability for the project-- yes, you guess it! That's a problem.
One of the great challenges of transformational change is that very often you are confronted with multiple sponsors who each bring their own vision, or "Frame of Reference," to the change. How do you "line up" these individuals so that you can harness the power and influence these authorizing sponsors can offer in a positive way, and overcome potential barriers to change that you may find in your organization-- for example, turf-guarding (hypothetically-speaking, of course....).
What's the end-goal for your enterprise-wide change? That may seem like an obvious question, but it's really not! In our thirty-plus years of change management consulting we've observed a common pattern of "premature project completion" across all types of organizational changes, including enterprise-wide change.
Just how important is sponsor contracting to successful transformational change? Don Harrison, IMA President and developer of AIM (Accelerating Implementation Methodology) will tell you that all failed transformational change can be traced back to poor sponsor contracting with the Authorizing Sponsors.
