Enterprise
2 Mins
Over the past seven years, my company Prosci has grown up from a company headquartered in Colorado with about 50 U.S. employees and a presence in just one market to one with offices in eight countries, about 250 employees and providing services in about 70 markets with our direct presence and channel program. As Chief Global Officer (CGO), it has been my responsibility to lead this expansion. Mark Dorsett is Prosci's Chief Global Officer and a thought leader on Forbes Business Development Council, which originally published this article on December 19, 2022. It is republished here with permission. Prosci Global Headquarters, Fort Collins, Colorado What have we learned along the way? The primary lesson is that we need to help people individually adapt to and thrive in the new global environment. This begins by helping them come to understand what it means to them personally and how they can be successful. How do we do this? Ask people what the key is to successful change, and many will say “sponsorship.” In fact, our own research of over 8,000 projects indicated that the number one best predictor for successful change is active and visible executive sponsorship. Active and visible sponsorship requires much more than authorizing a budget and making decisions. As my colleague Lisa Kempton outlines, it requires what we call the ABCs: being Active, Building a sponsor coalition and directly Communicating with those who are impacted. It certainly means staying actively involved well beyond a kickoff meeting. Expanding Into New Markets When moving into a new country, it’s important to work closely with the country leader to set the expectation that people in that market will have direct access to both your organization’s direct executive as well as others at headquarters to ask questions, seek advice and find out with whom they can connect. It’s crucial to provide avenues through which they can become active and integral players within the broader community. I personally have more often begun to have 1:1 interactions with not only the country lead but also all the in-market leaders, at least bimonthly, as soon we get started. You might ask if this runs the risk of destroying the credibility of the direct manager. While it’s true that this runs the risk of people starting to go around their direct manager, we have found that it rarely happens, and the benefit of feeling connected is much greater. We’ve found it a useful practice to remove hierarchy and titles as much as possible within the company and encourage people to talk directly to whomever they believe can best help them. When having such conversations, I make it a point to ask such key questions as, “What do you need to be successful? Is there anything that I or someone else can do to remove barriers?” I don’t want to be known as the person who only asks for things from them. Building Support Among Sponsors Savvy CGOs should also be intentional about getting other executives involved. While I need to be accountable for the global results, I cannot and do not want to do this alone. So sponsoring discussions and visits from our CEO, our CFO, our EVP of Talent or Sales and others is critical to our ability to build a global community and shared ownership. Starting something new, whether it be the launch of a new product or sales channel or entering a new geographic market, always brings surprises. I have encountered many unexpected factors to consider when it comes to merging people and organizations, bringing with them different types of business results as well as clients. I advise leaders to expect some bumps, try not to overreact and instead make sure to provide the reassurance that we are united as one in our shared challenges. This past year, one of our country’s leaders unexpectedly died. As the market was less than a year old, the team members wondered what would happen: Would we shut it down? What would we do? We made it a company priority—not just my own, but a company-wide priority—to help them, reach out to them and demonstrate our commitment to the people first and then the market. Putting People First During Change Most of you probably have experiences similar to mine in that the business results in the first couple of years are often choppy and difficult to forecast accurately. So, whenever the rest of the leadership team and I talk with the people in new markets, we repeat that while we care about business results, we are in this for the long term, and the direction is more important than immediate financial success. Finally, I want to petition leaders not to forget about the people who bring their organizations to the point where it is. This may no longer be limited to one geographical market, vertical or product. Our team members, new and old, need to understand the “why” of the change and what it means to them. Laying out clear communications on who will be impacted, when and to what degree are all important components of effective change management.
Enterprise
2 Mins
Research shows that change management is often the missing ingredient in making organizational priorities successful. How do you know if you're giving change management the priority it needs? Misunderstanding Change Management At the end of a day-long leadership meeting on the fundamentals of change management, a chief marketing officer said: "This has been really informative, but my plate is really full, and I need to get back to the office and get some things done.” Worse, the leader brought it up in response to how the team would implement what they had learned during the meeting. As the leader demonstrated, it's easy to slip back into the thinking that change management is a nice-to-have, something that needs to fit around other pressing priorities. Because change management supports and enables the success of these priorities, we often need to remind leaders of its value. Getting things done vs. getting things adopted Here’s how the facilitator working with this too-busy executive reminded them why change management matters enough to create clear action items and next steps: “It is clear that you and all the members of the executive team here have many changes underway that require considerable attention. But as you return to the office, my question is: do you want to get things done, or do you want to get things adopted?” Every organization has plenty to do, but the reality is many things get done that don’t ever deliver full value because the people to whom the change happened found ways to delay or deflect the change. In other words, they did not adopt the change that was “done.” Project management gets things done Most organizations have systems, tools, models and methods for assuring that changes get done. Project management and process improvement are but two examples of methods that assure things get done on time, on budget and within scope. However, it's possible for things to get done and not deliver their intended benefits to the organization because people don’t always fully adopt the changes made. For example, if you have ever purchased a new piece of technology, you have experienced the gap between installation (getting it done) and adoption. Often, people don't use a smart phone to its full capability. We purchase the phone with the intent of adding streamlining and simplifying our lives, but without using it to its full potential (adopting it), it cannot deliver all its value. This lack of full adoption is not a phone problem—it’s a people problem and fixing it requires people-oriented tools. Change management gets things adopted Regardless of type, for any change to deliver its full benefit, everyone impacted by the change must have: Awareness of the need for change Desire to participate and support the change Knowledge on how to change Ability to implement the required skills and behaviors Reinforcement to sustain the change Prosci ADKAR Model Progression through each of these five elements represents the process of change adoption. Facilitating individual change adoption is the crux of change management. Which Leader Are You? Leaders who get things done: Define success of a change as implementation alone. They shunt change management to the side as being nice to have. Think change management is important but don’t invest time, money, people and mindshare in making it a reality. Leaders who get things adopted: Define success of a change as realizing the intended benefits of the change. This means investing in methods, model and tools for facilitating individual change adoption. Modify their own behavior to become good sponsors because they know sponsorship is the number one contributor to change success. Require their direct reports to understand and embrace their respective roles in change. Equip individuals with the understanding and tools they need to facilitate their own change adoption. Which leader are you? Are you getting things done and getting things adopted?
