Managing change is tough, but part of the problem is that there is little agreement on what factors most influence transformation initiatives. Ask three executives to name the one factor which is critical for the success of these programs, and you’ll probably get five different answers. That’s because each manager looks at an initiative from his or her viewpoint and, based on personal experience, focuses on different success factors.
What’s missing, possibly is a clear the hard factors such as the time necessary to complete an initiative, the number of people or management capacity required to execute it, and the financial results that intended actions are expected to achieve.
Key Roles During Change
While designing any transformation project, some roles are the actors on stage while others orchestrate change activities behind the scenes. A few of the key roles that need to be planned include practitioner (strategy formulation and developing role-based change plans), sponsor (organization leader driving change), people manager (change advocates and communicators or coach), project manager (manage execution and integrate change plans with project plans) and impacted employees/people (participants).
Planning Change
Given the participation of so many people and the complex nature of businesses, it’s good to have a coherent execution plan. Most large-scale enterprise transformation takes a long time, and value realization typically takes even longer. However, thinking micro allows an organization to deconstruct larger transformation into several smaller initiatives that each have a well-defined objective and outcome. These are delivered by small teams comprised of hybrid talent with diverse cross-functional skills.
As the shelf life of business strategies grows shorter, a corporation’s transformation capability becomes its only enduring advantage and its high time executives spend time in understanding the nature and process of corporate transformation and display the right intent to make such initiatives an enduring success.
