At the 2016 Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP) 2016 Conference, one of the talks that caught my eye was called Top 7 Insights, Taking ECM to the Next Level by Jacqueline Iny.  This post represents part 2 of 2.

5.       Let the client do the work.  I had to really think about this one for a minute and then it hit me when the presenter said “stick with your expertise”.  I must admit, I am quite guilty of this from time to time.  In an effort to move things forward, I have made assumptions about a client’s business or industry and while it may have moved things forward, I may not have necessarily had all of the information I needed.  The client knows their business better than anyone else and as a change consultant, it is my responsibility to draw that information out of them and let the client do the work that they should be doing for the particular effort.

6.       Design and Establish a Change Management Quick Approach.   One of the great things about being in the consulting business, is that the scenery changes and you get the opportunity to work with lots of different clients across diverse industries.  That being said, while not all change efforts are the same, developing an OCM ‘framework’ can help you to hit the ground running more quickly.  This can be as simple as making a quick list of “to do” items in the first week of an engagement.  Some of my quick approach items include an OCM kick off, which helps to answer many questions about the client and their culture, standard templates for Stakeholder analysis, communications planning and the case for change.  Having a consistent approach to the tools you utilize can help provide faster and more effective client results.

7.       Resistance is a gift.   This one also took me a little longer to grasp, but this insight connects with #4 above in this manner.  Sometimes, resistance is necessary due to a lack of the information needed to make the right decision or recommendation.  AS a change professional, we should excel at resistance.  Not only resisting when we need additional information but noticing when a client is resisting for perhaps the same reason.

All in all, after really thinking through all of these, this ended up being one of the better presentations I attended during the conference.  Taking many of the basic tenants that we follow as change professionals and turning them around a bit, can lead to new and improved ways of tacking an engagement and ultimately providing client satisfaction.

At the 2016 Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP) 2016 Conference, one of the talks that caught my eye was called Top 7 Insights, Taking ECM to the Next Level by Jacqueline Iny.  While at first glance, many of these 7 insights seemed a bit off to me and with the limited presentation time, you were left to draw some of your own conclusions, after hearing the whole presentation and thinking about it that evening, I have found that many are really good.

1.       Sponsorship is Overrated. Wait.  What?  How can the value of sponsorship on any change management or project management effort be overrated? Basically, just having a sponsor for a particular effort does not necessarily lead to a successful engagement.  What if the Sponsor does not have a clear message?  What if they are not engaged?  The conclusion I came to on this one is that sponsorship matters, but can only be beneficial if there is some defined intrinsic value to the sponsorship.

2.       70% of project failures are NOT due to Change Management.  This one I believe wholeheartedly.  One of the slides we use a great deal in our practice to point out the value of change management, is one which states that most IT related projects fail due to a lack of adoption, not necessarily a failure in the deliverable.  Poor project management can lead to failure, even with the most perfectly executed change management plan.

3.       Don’t communicate, communicate, communicate.  This one goes completely 180 degrees from what many change practitioners are always saying.  I agree with the premise of this one, in that many change management consultants attempt to flood the scene with communications from email to presentations to posters and signs in an effort to get the message out as many ways as possible, as often as possible.  In reality, communicating LESS can actually be far more effective, so long as you are delivering the RIGHT message to the RIGHT audience at the RIGHT time.  Communicating just to communicate is ineffective and can ultimately do more harm than good.

4.       Procrastinate rather than plan.  This is one that many change professionals, as well as project managers get caught in. Most change professionals hit the ground at a client site, only to have massive expectations of “THE PLAN” placed on them, with a deliverable in a far too short time period.  More often than not, we are dealing with emerging change rather than managed changed.  This means that there are often far more unanswered or developing questions than there are answered.  Slowing things down can lead to greater success once you are able to assemble the entire picture.

Part 2 of this blog will follow, with #5-7 of the insights.

Building a Successful Change Network

One of the most valuable tools at the disposal of a Change Management Consultant is the Change Champion and Change Agent Network they create at the beginning of an engagement. When stood up properly, this group can make your change effort a success in so many ways and can also lead to sustainment of the change within the client organization for years to come.  During a recent engagement with a large manufacturing company, I was fortunate enough to have created one of the better Change Champion networks I have assembled in some time.   Just prior to my departure, as I met with these 6 champions for the last time, I was really interested in hearing their opinion on why we had been so successful.  There were 3 key takeaways from that conversation

1. The correct people were chosen
2. Each Change Champion saw this as an “opportunity” to grow professionally
3. They were personally invested in the success of the project

For this particular effort (company moving from Lotus Notes to Office 365), within my first week on site, I was fortunate enough to be able to conduct a very detailed stakeholder analysis and learn a great deal about the organization. Once complete, I reached out to the senior leadership team and asked for 15 minutes in their next meeting to discuss not only my view of OCM, but to also get their buy-in on my approach to creating a change champion network for this effort.  Being a global organization, I knew that selecting the correct people would be critical to make sure there was coverage across the globe.  I narrowed the organization to 6 unique divisions and reached out to the senior project team member in each of those divisions and explained what I was looking for.

• Outgoing and respected among their peers
• Willing to accept new ways of doing things
• Able understand not only the change at hand, but how they could help make that change more effective.
• Willing to create a change network to cover their organization

Once the 5 Change Champions were selected/appointed, I met with them to discuss their role and expectations. Over the next 3 weeks, we worked to create their change networks, as well as continue to arm them with the knowledge and tools to continue to better understand the change effort as a whole.  All of them quickly saw the “Big Opportunity” and each was working on a daily basis to spread the word about the effort and to get others involved.

The final point takeaway, is to make certain each change champion is “personally invested” in the success of the project. While initially I felt some concern about all of them basically being in the IT organization and there being no representatives from the business, I learned that the IT organization as a whole had a bad reputation for not communicating well and for not providing adequate training, two things each of them wanted to change.  All Change Champions eagerly attended every weekly meeting and all were always proactively reaching out within their organization to promote the project and growing their individual change networks.  All 5 of them created global change networks within their organization and invited me to give presentations on OCM and their role in the current project.

There were many other factors at play which made this particular team successful, but I feel the three highlighted above are the most important. Feedback from across the organization from executives to end users, was overwhelmingly positive and mentioned on more than one occasion how this project had gone against the norm in a very positive way.  I learned as much from them as they ultimately learned from me and I know I will carry it forward to future engagements.

Change starts with the OCM Lead, but to be truly impactful, it must end with a strong change champion network, full of Change Champions/Agents who are the correct people, see the role as an opportunity to make a difference and who are personally invested in the success of the project or change effort.

I recently attended the opening session of Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP) yearly conference and was immediately drawn to keynote speaker John Achor’s thoughts on “The Happiness Advantage” and how positive thought can not only make you happier, but can provide a myriad of other positive impacts in your life. Not only can it have an impact on your life, the “ripple effect” of your happiness impacts everyone around you as well.

I think the first mistake that people make is in how they define happiness. The vast majority of people associate happiness with pleasure, which sounds logical.  An ancient Greek definition struck a particular chord with me and has be rethinking how I define happiness.  Simply put, happiness is the joy you feel moving toward your potential.  Being a runner this really hit home with me.  NOBODY likes training for marathons.  The sheer volume of runs you have to accumulate to prepare is an all-out assault on your body, and you typically feel miserable after most runs.  That is until you realize your potential and actually finish a marathon.  There is no feeling like it in the world and I can tell you from experience, that is happiness.

So, how does this translate your effectiveness at work and in life? In his book The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work, Achor gives the following statistics about how much better positive people perform:

• Your brain at positive is 31% more productive than your brain at negative, neutral or stressed
• You’re 37% better at sales
• 3X more creative
• 40 % more likely to be promoted
• 23% fewer fatigue symptoms 10X more engaged
• 39% more likely to live to age 94

Those are some staggering numbers, but after reading his book in one sitting after the conference, are hard to doubt. If you want to learn more about this, I highly recommend his book and also check out his TED talk, which has well over 4 million views (link to TED Talk)