Leaders, teamwork needed for change

I have discussed the need to understand why a change is necessary for the survival and growth of the organization. I also looked at the need to make a careful diagnosis of the external and internal environment to look for reasons to make a change and then to make a good plan.

Now, I want to talk about enlisting others to help you make the changes. Don’t expect to take on the entire world by yourself. It’s a big lonely place and difficult to get much done if you are acting on your own. In fact, really good change agents rarely, if ever, act alone.

After you understand the need for the change, you have to enlist the help and support of a core team of powerful stakeholders. One sure way of destroying any chance of success is to enlist a group or team of employees or staff with no power and no authority. Most instances of failure of a change project can be traced to a lack of credibility in the change team membership.

So, to be successful, you need to work with a group of key stakeholders to develop a shared vision of the preferred future and a strategy of how to get there; a strategy that will then be rolled out to the entire organization.

Select Strong Leaders

If change starts with a champion or a change agent, what characteristics does that leader need to be a success? The process of selecting someone to lead a change effort must include this kind of assessment. When establishing change leadership, you should look for people who meet the fundamental qualities of good leaders:

• Strong leaders have strong motivational abilities and can energize their audiences through enthusiasm and confidence in success.
• Strong leaders have an ability to create and communicate compelling visions.
• Strong leaders interact with people in a supportive and empathetic way.
• Strong Leaders are excellent managers who plan and execute well.

Once the change champion has been selected, the next task is to gather together a core change team.

Building A Change Team

The core change team must be a powerful group because they will be instrumental in developing the change vision and strategy. Selecting individuals for the team should be based on the following characteristics:

Position power: People with power derived from formal reporting relationships such as a vice-president or the union president. These are the people that have proven their ability to get things done and to secure necessary resources. They can enable great progress. Conversely, if these people are not co-opted, they will remain the power to block progress towards the change.

Expertise: People with knowledge of the relevant subject matter must be on the team. If the problem is an operations problem, recruiting operations experts will help the team make better decisions.

Leadership skill: People with the ability to motivate, create and communicate a clear vision of the future and with the ability to empower others are key to the success of the effort. These people have the management skill and leadership style to enlist everyone.

All of this information is really common sense. The surprising thing is that in many instances, common sense is the last thing used to assemble a change team and proceed with the implementation plan. Often, the change process is not carefully planned, a change champion with credibility and expertise is not chosen to head the project, and the people nominated to provide support have little if any position power or credibility.