In the last two posts, we’ve examined things about sponsorship that many of us believe to be true. We’re also looking into why we sometimes stray from these axioms when we design interventions and/or interact with sponsors.

In my work, I’ve found that the most effective sponsors display a common set of characteristics. Of course, they’re expressed differently depending on the organization, the circumstances, and the personality of the sponsor, but in general, highly successful sponsors are purposeful, attentive, committed, decisive, and resolute. I’ll break these down into very specific statements and actions.

Characteristics of Effective Sponsorship

Purposeful

• Dissatisfied with the present state: Successful sponsors are keenly aware the organization cannot afford to fail at the change and use “pain messages” to reinforce that there is no going back to the status quo.
• Clearly define change: They create as specific a picture as possible of the desired future state that is aligned with the overall intent of the change.
• Shape expectations: Good sponsors establish clear and explicit expectations about what will be accomplished, how it will be done, what it will cost (in financial and non-financial currencies), and when it will be completed.
• Narrow focus: They concentrate the organization’s limited mindshare, energy, and capacity to absorb change primarily on business imperative initiatives.

Attentive

• Understand the organizational impacts of the change: Highly effective sponsors appreciate the powerful influence their cultures exert upon peoples’ behaviors, beliefs, and underlying assumptions, and are careful to ensure alignment between the culture and the change (change the culture, change the change, or prepare to fail).
• Understand the human impacts of the change: They acknowledge the complex web of relationships that comprise their organization and grasp the true impact their change-related decisions and actions will have on the individuals and groups who must commit to the initiative for it to succeed.
• Foster commitment: Successful sponsors operate on the basis that building commitment in others is a process requiring skillfully planned and executed communications, involvement activities, and events.
• Surface barriers to realization: They recognize that identifying obstacles and addressing risks are inherent to successfully managing change, and so require reliable tracking and reporting processes and reward early risk identification and mitigation.
• Protect capacity: They maintain vigilance on the ability of those affected by the initiative to absorb the change and take corrective action as required.
• Address resistance: They anticipate resistance and deal effectively with its nature and intensity throughout the change process.

Committed

• Demonstrate public commitment: Effective sponsors openly demonstrate the depth of their personal commitment to the endeavor.
• Demonstrate private support: They use “behind-the-scenes” actions that demonstrate personal commitment and show they are not just paying “lip service” to the change endeavor.
• Communicate powerfully: Successful sponsors use clear, accurate, and compelling language when communicating about the change, especially when convincing others that achieving realization is a business imperative.
• Apply consequences: They use positive and negative reinforcement to sanction change and drive tactical objectives as well as strategic goals.
• Convey status: Good sponsors use both formal and informal channels to share information about the initiative’s progress in ways that build and maintain people’s support.
• Eager to learn: They accept that effective sponsorship requires an ongoing openness to new ways of thinking and behaving and an appreciation for the importance of learning from mistakes.

Decisive

• Make tough decisions: Highly effective sponsors demonstrate the courage and discipline to make unpopular decisions. They engage actions that might not be in their short-term best interest in order to achieve realization (e.g., they take political risks).
• Allocate resources: They accurately assess the competing demands for resources, including the potential for overload, resistance, and culture. In addition, they assign the necessary resources to the change.
• Cascade sponsorship: Good sponsors build a strong network of sponsorship that extends down through the organization from the initiating sponsor to all primary sustaining and local sustaining sponsors
• Recalibrate: They make the adjustments needed to maintain the integrity of the intent, including altering, slowing, or terminating other projects that threaten realization.

Resolute

• Focus on realization: Highly effective sponsors are tenacious and unrelenting about fully realizing the intent of the change. They do not accept installation outcomes for key initiatives.
• Sustain support: They invest resources, energy, and attention in the initiative for as long as necessary to achieve the realization outcomes.
• Orchestrate key roles: Good sponsors ensure that they—as well as other sponsors, change agents, targets, and advocates—fully understand and properly perform their designated roles.
• Hold peers accountable: They recognize how important sponsor partnerships—across organizational lines—are to accomplishing the change objectives, and compel peer sponsors to speak candidly, offer and accept feedback, and surface issues that could derail the change effort.
• Bear the Price: They accept the personal and/or political cost for succeeding with transformational change and hold others in the organization accountable for doing the same.

I’m sure you’ll have your own variations to this list, but it largely represents what most of us have seen when working with exceptional sponsors.

Here are some key questions for practitioners: Does your sponsor embody these characteristics? If not, where does he or she fall short? How can you help him or her change the mindsets and behaviors necessary for success?

Despite believing that these are the characteristics of sponsors who excel, many of us don’t address the situation when clients fail to adhere to this standard and/or are unable to foster this kind of thinking and behavior with others. Why is that?

Next post: Free download of Conner Partners’ Sponsor Evaluation.

Go to the beginning of this series.