Page 351 - Managing Change in Organizations
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Chapter 18 ■ Strategic convergence: a new model for organization change
But that is not the point. If we can identify respected group members who will
embrace change, sponsorship of them to be engaged early in the change process
and to get early training, may pay dividends later in terms of problem solving,
ownership and the desired attitude changes. Thus one key task of the ‘senior
leader’ is to work with ‘local’ leaders to identify people along these lines and then
encourage their engagement in the change process. Later it is to provide support
and ‘cover’ to the group as it adjusts to the new situation.
Now setting out the change leadership idea in detail:
■ Credibility: the extent to which the leader has a successful track record of
change management experience.
■ Visibility: the extent to which the leader has been and is still accessible to people.
■ Learning orientation: the extent to which leaders display an orientation to be
open to new ideas and to learning.
■ Sponsoring early adopters: the extent to which leaders sponsor and support early
adopters.
■ Organizational slack: the extent to which leaders can buy time for problems to
be resolved, while providing people with ‘cover’ as they adjust to change and
adjust the new arrangements to local conditions.
■ Encourage learning through change: building on the above, the extent to which
leaders use change as an opportunity for learning within their teams, partly by
coaching but also by the leadership practices just identified. That is the extent
to which leaders encourage learning through change.
Accelerator effect
In a sense this category represents a recognition that we need to view change
management as a special case of programme management. We need to identify
whether or not project and programme management tools and processes are in
use. More to the point, we need to understand whether these tools are used to
focus on the particular needs of change situations, as follows:
■ Connectivity. Here we refer to the extent to which change initiatives are con-
nected explicitly to existing organizational processes. One example could be
performance management processes. To what extent are the measures of suc-
cess engineered into the existing performance management system? Another
might relate to IT infrastructure. Another might relate to reward systems.
■ Leverage. This relates to the extent to which change initiatives are managed
appropriately, particularly regarding timing to ensure that those designed as
‘platforms’ to be in place before others can be implemented are taken forward
to delivery in good time. Also, leverage derives out of the effective programme
management of a portfolio of initiatives to create impetus, energy for change
and a sense of purpose and momentum. Each initiative will need to be co-
ordinated with others. As we indicate, platform initiatives must precede oth-
ers which depend upon them. But all initiatives use resources and conflict over
resources will often need resolving through a process of prioritization.
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