IMA's Implementing Organizational Changes at Speed Blog

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! 

Change management professionals understand the value of change management and a change management methodology.  They know that when you pay attention to the human side of the change, projects can be much more successful. But that isn't always the case for other leaders and colleagues.  In fact, one of the most common frustrations is that others "don't get it."  As a result, the change management professionals naturally become frustrated. 

Remember that famous line from the classic movie "Cool Hand Luke?"  "What we have here is a failure to communicate."  Well, when it comes to transformational change, what we have here is a failure to inspire. If "transformational change" becomes nothing more than a cover for downsizing, it will be extremely difficult to get the demonstrated commitment you need to implement transformationally different processes, systems, and structures. 

One of the challenges for Change Agents and organizations is to sort through all the various "change management methodologies" and identify what fits best for your needs.  We have talked about a comparison of the Accelerating Implementation Methodology (AIM) to the ADKAR model from Prosci.  How does AIM compare to the 8 step Kotter model?  

External market forces are having a huge impact on global organizations.  The question this raises from a change management perspective is whether your current change management methodology is sufficiently robust and scalable to fully address the impact of these forces on your organization.