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!"
Instead of focusing on the "e" words like "empowerment" and "engagement," should we be focusing on "a" words like "accountability" and "active Sponsorship"? 
Let's discuss!
Do Your Sponsors Know They Are Sponsors?
Before we even get to discussing the accountabilities, the first step is to make sure these people even know they are considered to be "Sponsors." In much of our change management consulting experience, the term "Sponsor" in organizations historically refers only to an executive who has "raised his or her hand" and expressed the willingness to serve as the executive face for the change.
You can't volunteer to be a Sponsor! It is based on positional authority, and actions that must be taken. You either are, or you aren't, based on your organizational position. If you have people who are impacted by a change and who report to you, you are a Sponsor of that change. The "Authorizing Sponsor" is the individual who ultimately provides the funding, resources, and legitimizes the change, but only in his or her chain of command.
So if a change is occurring that impacts Financial Services, a leader in Financial Services has to sponsor that change. Supporting functions like IT and Human Resources can only sponsor changes within those organizations!
Then the change is cascaded level by level through Reinforcing Sponsors who have direct reports that are impacted by this specific change. It's not a cascade of messaging, but a cascade of demonstrated, explicit commitment between these Reinforcing Sponsors and their direct reports.
Once we know who our Sponsors are (which we can determine through the AIM process deliverable known as key role mapping), we can then determine what the Sponsor is accountable for, and what not.
Sponsor Accountabilities
This distinction is incredibly important for the success of your project, because no matter how good the project team is or your Change Agents in the field are, there are 6 critical change tasks that can't be delegated and are accountabilities for your Sponsors, whether they are Authorizing Sponsors or Reinforcing Sponsors:
1. Establish and communicate the Business Case for Action to define the change in their chain of command.
2. Participate in goal setting.
3. Allocate the resources required to implement the change.
4. Concentrate their energies on their direct reports by starting (Authorizing Sponsors) and/or continuing (Reinforcing Sponsors) the cascade of "Express, Model, and Reinforce" commitment.
5. Implement appropriate rewards, recognition, and consequences for performance as it relates to the change with their direct reports.
6. Monitor implementation progress and make necessary adjustments.
These accountabilities apply to every change that is being implemented with the direct reports of that Sponsor.
Are your Sponsors aware of these accountabilities? If they aren't, you should fix that sooner rather than later! No amount of engagement on the part of Targets is as important as the accountability of Sponsors to perform these 6 critical tasks. Enthusiastic Targets are not a replacement for active, accountable Sponsors.
