Do you have a primary sponsor named for your project but lack the true sponsorship support you need to succeed?
When project leaders and change practitioners are asked to name the number one factor in project success, they typically know the answer: active and visible sponsorship. In all of Prosci's Best Practices in Change Management research reports, active and visible sponsorship ranks as the top contributor to project success and has been cited four times more often than any other factor. Yet, despite a large percentage of projects having a named primary sponsor, many change practitioners lack the true sponsorship they need for success.
Why You Need True Sponsorship During Change
To understand why the role of the primary sponsor is important to achieving successful change, consider what the role really entails. Change leaders need primary sponsors to fulfill all of the ABC's of Sponsorship:
Active and visible participation throughout the project
Build a coalition of sponsorship
Communicate support and promote the change to impacted groups
When this level of sponsorship is lacking, change leaders often experience:
Increased resistance from employees, including key people managers in the organization
Unavailable resources to support the project
Slow adoption of the change or complete rejection of the change by some parts of the organization
Sponsor in Name or in Practice?
Consider a project you're supporting today. If you agree with the statements above and a senior leader has agreed be your primary sponsor, you might assume you are good to go. Unfortunately, the research does not support this assumption. Over the last two decades, Prosci research participants have cited ineffective change sponsorship as a top obstacle to change for a variety of reasons, such as:
The sponsor was at the wrong level or in the wrong part of the organization to support this change (i.e., the sponsor lacked control over the people and systems impacted by the change).
The sponsor was invisible (i.e., the sponsor did not get involved with the project team or communicate to employees).
The sponsor did not build a coalition of sponsorship with other business leaders (and as a result, the change team encountered resistance from managers throughout the organization).
The sponsor wavered in their support midway through the project (or found a different project that took priority).
The sponsor did not manage the resistance that surfaced during the change.
In the 12th Edition of Prosci's Best Practices in Change Management research study, participants cited the following sponsor challenges:
The upshot? Assigning a senior leader to the role of primary sponsor does not constitute effective sponsorship.
Sponsorship Checklist
The checklist below is a simple tool that can help you determine whether you are well-positioned to have the authority necessary for change success. Score each question on a scale of one to five, where one represents "no" or complete disagreement with the statement, and five represents "yes" or complete agreement with the statement.
If you score between 40 and 50 and you scored the first three questions a 4 or 5, your project likely has the elements for effective sponsorship. A score below 30 indicates that your project lacks the effective sponsorship required for successful change.
Statement
Score
My sponsor has the ability to provide the needed resources and funding for the project.
1 - 5
My sponsor has direct control over the people and processes being impacted by this change.
1 - 5
My sponsor has direct control over the systems and tools being impacted by this change.
1 - 5
My sponsor is willing and able to be active and visible throughout the entire project.
1 - 5
My sponsor will build a coalition of sponsorship with key leaders and stakeholders in the organization.
1 - 5
My sponsor will manage resistance from other managers and remove barriers to the success of the project.
1 - 5
My sponsor will communicate directly to employees about why this change is being made and the risk of not changing.
1 - 5
My sponsor will implement the necessary reinforcements to sustain the change, including modifications to performance objectives and performance evaluations, and rewards and recognition for employees who adopt the change.
1 - 5
My sponsor is credible and respected by employees and managers within the organization (i.e., employees embrace the leadership of this individual).
1 - 5
My sponsor will remain in the organization throughout the implementation of this change.
1 - 5
Total score:
How to Remedy Ineffective Sponsorship
If you scored low on the sponsorship checklist, take action to address the root cause:
A low score on any of the first three questions means your sponsor is probably not at the right level, given the scope of your project. In this case, a careful assessment of the sponsor coalition would determine if this project is in jeopardy. If you determine that your sponsorship coalition is also weak, you have two options:
Identify the right person to sponsor this initiative and begin to build the necessary sponsor coalition.
Redefine the scope of your project to fit or align with the sponsorship you do have.
Simply continuing with the project is not typically a viable option because the consequences will negatively affect the organization and your people, and your risk of project failure is high.
A low score on questions 4 through 8 means your sponsor needs coaching on the role of the primary sponsors during change. You may have a sponsor who is willing but does not know what effective sponsorship means, or you could have a sponsor who prefers not to be directly involved. The latter issue is harder to overcome, but with the right information and approach, most sponsors quickly see the importance of their role and get on board. Other the other hand, if your sponsor is willing but uneducated about the role of effective sponsorship, the change leader should directly coach and assist the sponsor to execute the role.
A low score on questions 9 or 10 likely means you need special tactics for approaching the project, including careful use of a strong sponsor coalition to carry a strong message to employees and be there throughout the entire project. If your sponsor is on a fixed term, such as with military organizations or government agencies, you may want to consider breaking the project into phases and focus on the phase that falls within the term limit of that sponsor.
Your Role in Effective Sponsorship
Having a primary sponsor named for your change and having the required sponsorship for successful change are not the same thing. Most executives and senior leaders lack understanding about how to be an effective primary sponsor of change—and that's to be expected because change management is not their primary role in the organization. Fortunately, that's where you come in. As a change practitioner, it's your job to enable your sponsor, so they are prepared and equipped to execute the critical actions needed for change success.
Tim Creasey
Tim Creasey is Prosci’s Chief Innovation Officer and a globally recognized leader in Change Management. Their work forms the basis of the world's largest body of knowledge on managing the people side of change to deliver organizational results.
The excerpt below comes from the 2005 Best Practices in Change Management benchmarking report with 411 participants from 59 countries. The report includes findings for all aspects of managing change. Below are the top three things participants would do differently on their next project. As you prepare for new projects and changes, ask yourself how well you have prepared for these factors. Best practice excerpt - What teams would do differently on their next project Participants were asked what they would do differently on their next project. The most commonly cited responses in order of frequency were: Dedicate resources to change management. Create a change management team or lead position to select and adopt a methodology and improve the organization's understanding of the value of change management. Empower these individuals to prepare and educate executives, managers and project team members on change management tools, processes and techniques. Secure executive sponsorship earlier in the project. Enlist executive support for the change as early as possible. Clarify the role of the sponsor and make sure they understand how critical this role is to the success of the project. Conduct ongoing briefings of the progress and status of the project and provide coaching in areas of change management for those managers who may be inexperienced in dealing with large-scale change. Repeat key messages early and often. Reach everyone in the organization with messages pertaining to the change. Keep communications clear, simple and frequent. Using Best Practice Information How do you use the lessons and experiences of others to help your change go more smoothly? Below are several implications. How do you stack up - for projects on the horizon, ask yourself how well you score on the three factors above. This will be a good assessment to do before you jump into new changes in the coming year. If you score poorly on any of the factors, then take action now and don't wait! Change management team characteristics - look for the following attributes as you choose your change management team members: excellent communication skills, business influence, commitment to the change, knowledge of the business, team player, change management experience, creativity, innovative problem solver, flexibility, passion and dedication to success, enthusiastic, and responsible. Ensure sufficient change management team resources - increase the number of full-time personnel, increase the overall number of team members, provide the team with specific change management expertise and select a representative membership from different functions, departments, and levels within the organization. Executive sponsors need and want to be coached - the change management team is the sponsor's coach. The change management team should build a working relationship with the executive sponsor and provide the coaching (including the sponsorship roadmap - where they need to be, when, what they will be doing) they need to be successful. This will in turn make you successful because strong and visible executive sponsorship throughout a project is the number one success factor according to the Best Practices in Change Management Report. Preferred senders of messages - repeating key messages 5-7 times is essential, but who should be sending those messages? The Best Practices in Change Management Report identifies two primary senders of communication messages depending on the nature of the message. Top-level executives and managers are the preferred senders when the message pertains to the business need for change and alignment of the change with the organization's overall direction. The employees' immediate supervisors are cited as the key senders of messages that pertain to the individual impact resulting from the change (discussing 'what's in it for me' with each employee.) Сomplete report: The full Best Practices in Change Management Report provides insights, lessons learned and checklists for effectively managing the people side of change. Download the Executive Summary for a preview of the insights and trends listed in the full report.
Managing change during uncertainty can cause us to feel overwhelmed and powerless. But grounding our thoughts in what we already know about effective change can unlock creativity and the ability to problem-solve in our brains. Grounding our thinking is also a powerful, psychological way to direct our thoughts away from stress and create a sense of calm and control. This paves the way for more thoughtful actions and better results from change. What You Know About Change Management Whenever you face a stressful and uncertain change, it can be easy to focus too much on the difficulties ahead and lose confidence in your ability to deliver change management effectively. To reframe the situation and set yourself up for success, try to ground your thoughts in these three fundamental “Change Is, People Do” declarations about people and change: 1. Change is challenging, and people do resist change Change is often challenging because of uncertainty, risk and fear. Going from a comfortable current state to something new and different causes discomfort in social structures, our established habits, working norms, and even our psychological safety. This naturally leads to resistant behaviors, which are normal and expected during change. People resist change in many ways, ranging from quiet indifference and workarounds to recruiting dissenters and intentionally sabotaging projects. 2. Change is a process, and people do need to understand why We can’t flip a switch and expect people to know what is changing and how to change. We need to help them through the transition from their current state to their future state. When you tell people their job will be impacted by a change, you must also explain how all of the aspects of their job will be impacted. You must explain the current-state process and future-state process, current-state location and future-state location, and so on. This is what people need. And they need to know the why behind the change. Why are we changing? Why this? Why now? What happens if we don’t change? Prosci's 10 Aspects of Change Impact 3. Change is individual, and people do need change leadership We can’t talk about individual change without talking about ADKAR, which is an acronym for the process we know everyone goes through during change: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. To effectively build Awareness and Desire, we need specific individuals and roles in our organization to act so we can achieve critical individual process milestones. Who are the change leaders? Prosci Best Practices in Change Management research tells us that senior leaders are the preferred senders of organizational messages, and people managers (direct supervisors) are the preferred senders of personal impact messages. Preferred Senders of Messages Adaptive Action Framework in Change Management Another thing we know about people and change is that successful change can be unlocked. This is where an elegantly simple framework called Adaptive Action can help. Detailed in Adaptive Action: Leveraging Uncertainty in Your Organization, by Glenda H. Eoyang and Royce J. Holladay, the Adaptive Action framework can be applied to these “change is, people do” declarations to help us identify precisely what our next, best steps should be. The Adaptive Action model comprises three basic questions: What? So what? Now what? "What" asks about the current situation. What are you observing? What’s happening? "So What?" asks what meaning or conclusions we can draw. What's our reflective thinking on what's happening? "Now what?" is the action part. What actions can we take to address the implications? In addition to being easy to understand, the Adaptive Action framework enables us to use change management processes, structures and plans to reassess, course-correct, and adapt as needed very quickly. Consider our statement, “Change is challenging, and people do resist change.” How might we take Adaptive Action? 1. First ask, “What?” What about this change is so challenging? Maybe the challenge has nothing to do with the people side of change. It could be the solution itself—the technical side of what we’re designing, developing and delivering. Or the way the change is being brought to life, such as the Agile or another iterative approach. 2. Now let’s reflect on that by asking, “So what?” What are the implications of your observations about the “What” you observed? Why is change so challenging? Why do people resist it? Maybe the problem is that Agile and iterative approaches are new to your organization. People exhibit resistance behaviors because they’re unsure about the iterative impact to their day-to-day work and how they will be supported through the change process. 3. Finally, ask, “Now what?” What actions can you take immediately to address what’s going on? For our Agile example, we might share visuals that help impacted groups understand the eventual end state beyond incremental releases. We can also reinforce key messages and benefits. And we can engage sponsors and people managers to advocate for the change, setting clear expectations for their teams. Change Management in Times of Uncertainty As change leaders, we can address nearly any change challenge when we have the right knowledge, skills and tools. Combining what we already know about people and change with the Adaptive Action framework helps us adopt an action-oriented mindset, unlock problem-solving and creative areas of our brains, and make grounding connections. This helps us feel more comfortable, calm and in control while effectively leading others during complex and uncertain times of change.
The upshot? Assigning a senior leader to the role of primary sponsor does not constitute effective sponsorship.
