How do communications and influence flow through your organization? The most obvious and visible method is through formal channels. Leaders in corporate or business-line roles receive information from executives and these leaders cascade the information down the hierarchy through predictable channels like email and town hall and group meetings. The path of these communications can be easily traced down through the lines and boxes of […]
Organizational Change Management
Avoid the Day-old Sushi Approach to Leading Organizational Change
Do you love sushi as much as I do? So how do you know if what you ordered was made fresh with quality ingredients? Would you buy pre-packaged sushi from a gas station or convenience store on some remote highway? What if that sushi was also over a day old – how many risks are you […]
Prevent the Negativity Associated with Epic (EHR) Upgrades
I just got back from the doctor whose office is in one of the leading hospitals in the United States. I was his first appointment of the day. “They just updated Epic this morning, and everyone is getting into the office trying to make sense of the changes,” the doctor said. I asked if he […]
Orchestras, Onions, and Organizational Culture – A Primer
Have you ever watched an orchestra before they perform a concert? You will see an interesting ritual where musicians individually warm up their instruments as the audience arrives to find their seats. Next, without a visible external cue – and before the conductor steps on stage, the musicians begin their tuning process. The principal violinist (also known as the concertmaster) will play a tuning note. Fellow violinists seated next […]
Tools to Calibrate the Need for Organizational Change Management
While digital transformation started gradually over 25 years ago, this new wave of data driven innovation has steadily gained momentum. Today, digital transformation includes a wide umbrella of technologies – including the cloud, Big Data, analytics, artificial intelligence, mobile/mobility, and IoT. For me, the digital transformation revolution gives us an incredible number of tools to improve how we […]
“No One Has Ever Shut a Door” at Perficient
Our Perficient colleagues share how they live and breathe our core values. Here, David Chapman, General Manager and Chief Strategist, Organizational Change Management, writes about being in awe of his colleagues and grateful for the experiences he’s had while working at Perficient. When I think about why I take a lot of pride in working at Perficient, it’s […]
Build a Perpetual Beta Mindset to Speed Organizational Change
Nearly every day, I can scan the headlines on my news feeds and read a report on the dramatic ways that artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the way we work. While the field of AI is wide and evolving, I like the definition given by Nils J. Nilsson, a founding AI researcher at Stanford University: Artificial intelligence is that activity devoted to making machines intelligent, and intelligence […]
Your “Back of the Napkin” Formula for Leading Change
When was the last time you gave an impromptu update over lunch on the back of a napkin to explain that big change project you are leading? Did you run out of space on the napkin or were you able to succinctly capture and explain where and why the project was – or was not – on target? […]
3 Steps to Overcoming Communication Barriers
We often hear the phrase “Seek first to understand and then to be understood” or are told to actively listen. While these are important, often time it’s simply not tactical enough. Too often what we hear is skewed by the filters that we (and our audiences) apply. So how do we ensure what we say […]
Cones of Uncertainty and Certainty and Organizational Change
“How will the change affect me personally?” This is the first question that people want answered as soon as they learn about upcoming plans for a large organizational change. However, at the early stages of preparing for organizational change, leaders are not able to give specific answers to these questions. This concept, known as the Cone of Uncertainty, is found in […]
4 Steps to Effective Change Management Communications
I’m amazed at how often I get asked – and frankly argued with – about the amount of work that it takes to perform change management activities. After all, it’s not that hard to “send out a few emails,” right? Wrong. Sending out a few emails isn’t rocket science. But it’s also not as simple […]
Biggest Change Management Mistake: Treating All Stakeholders the Same
Treating all stakeholders the same is one of the most common, yet biggest, mistakes that change managers make today. Why? Because they’re not the same. As a sports fan – one who likes to both play and watch sports on TV – I came up with an analogy to illustrate the complexity of change management. The difference […]