How Resilient Are You?
(2) CommentsAs a change practitioner, you’ve probably seen the impact of major change on your team’s or department’s productivity. Humans have a limited capacity to absorb the disruption that change creates. When an individual faces more demand for change than he or she can absorb, the result is an increase in dysfunctional behavior.
To adapt successfully, individuals must increase their speed of change. I’m not talking about the velocity at which things around them are changing, but rather how fast they can recover from their own disrupted expectations. When people are able to function at their optimum speed of change, they can absorb significant disruption with minimal dysfunction. The key to increasing a person’s speed of change is resilience.
Resilient people are no less vulnerable than others to the stresses of change. They can’t prevent disruptions, but the results of a change are often more fruitful and less damaging for them. Resilient people bounce back quickly; they do not become victims of change. more
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©2010 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
The Best Way to Help a Sponsor Deal With Change
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” Gandhi
If we are to be effective at helping clients understand and manage complex change, we must not only have the ability to educate and facilitate—we must also model the behavior we need to see in those we serve.
Who we are particularly affects our relationships with senior sponsors. Many practitioners haven’t come to terms with that fact. I’ve heard internal agents say, “I like being assigned to high-level leaders, but I can’t be a role model for people that high up in our organization. Anyone at that level won’t relate to me in that way anyway, but I don’t really see myself as someone a senior officer should imitate.”
This kind of self-image limits the practitioner to tactical influence at best. We have to see ourselves as not only change specialists, but also exemplars for the sponsors we serve. Yes, it’s challenging, but without this aspect to the relationship, our guidance will seem more theoretical than practical (it may sound good but doesn’t translate to real life). Even worse, we can appear to the sponsor as providing questionable, if not bogus, guidance. more
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©2010 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Identifying and Developing Change Agents
Selecting the appropriate people to function as change agents on a major project is critical to realizing the full benefits of the initiative. At Conner Partners, we use the Change Agent Selection Form to help sponsors and potential agents do four things:
- Choose the most qualified change agents to work on a specific change
- Help the candidates understand the sponsors’ rationale for selecting or nominating them
- Provide a framework for the continued development of the prospective or selected agent(s)
- Facilitate discussion between the agent and sponsor, and clarify expectations for the agent’s performance during a specific change project more
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©2010 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Ways Change Agents Can Help Sponsors
As I wrote in my last post, even sponsors with lots of experience leading difficult transitions need the help of skilled change practitioners.
Sponsors are most effective when we help them:
Have a clear definition of the change. Effective sponsors must see the desired state clearly and understand the overall intent.
Recognize and express their dissatisfaction with the present state. Successful sponsors need to be keenly aware that the organization cannot afford to fail at the change; they have to be tenacious about fully realizing the initiative’s objectives and communicate effectively to the organization. more
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©2010 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Do You Recognize These Characteristics of Successful Change Practitioners?
(3) CommentsSponsors who aren’t adequately prepared for their role need our help. Even sponsors who have plenty of change experience and all the right “instincts” for orchestrating difficult transitions need help. They should be supported and guided by skilled change practitioners. So, what are the requirements for playing the change agent role, and how can we get better at it?
I’m going to focus on practitioners assigned to senior sponsors. Don’t get me wrong, change agents at all levels play important roles. It’s just that those who serve leaders in key positions (initiating and primary sustaining sponsors) are particularly important to the change success. more
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©2010 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
When You Need to Confront a Sponsor
So here we are with all this knowledge (see my three previous posts) about what sponsorship is, its crucial role in realizing change objectives, and how it can be effectively applied and yet we find ourselves sometimes not utilizing what we know.
How is it possible that seasoned practitioners, well versed in the theory of sponsorship and its practical application, are reluctant to leverage this information?
Here are some examples of situations when sponsors (or agents and advocates) need to be confronted by us as change practitioners: more
ChangeThinking.net
©2009 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
How to Spot (and Help) a Good Sponsor
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. more
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©2009 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Essential Truths About Sponsorship
Of the four primary roles in the change process (sponsors, agents, targets, and advocates), none is as crucial to successful realization of change as that of sponsor. Yet, as practitioners, we often don’t bond with these leaders effectively enough to carry out our responsibilities. I think this is the biggest problem we face as practitioners: Even though we know how important sponsors are to successful change, we don’t always do what we could to help them succeed.
Guiding sponsors toward new behaviors and mindsets is the heart of our profession. Maybe it’s time to invest more energy in exploring what we need to learn and what needs to shift in our own actions so we can be more influential with sponsors. more
ChangeThinking.net
©2009 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
Getting Help for a Project in Crisis (Part 5 of 5)
(1) CommentThe more an initiative’s makeup reflects being “in crisis,” the greater the likelihood of failure, the lower the quality of results and the longer it takes to reach intended outcomes. To compensate for these risks, sponsors who succeed with change typically ensure that more attention/resources (mindshare, knowledge, skill, money, people, courage, and discipline) are allotted to these endeavors.
Fortunately, there is a clear pattern for leaders who consistently achieve their change goals. more
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©2009 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
The Change Practitioner’s Role in Encouraging the Right Kind of Due Diligence (Part 4 of 5)
I hope this blog provides all its readers with a vehicle for sharing not only ideas but tools and techniques as well. At Conner Partners, we use an assessment tool to help us evaluate the overall challenge an organization is likely to encounter when implementing a particular initiative. It focuses on the three dimensions I have been writing about: more
ChangeThinking.net
©2009 Conner Partners, Inc.
www.connerpartners.com
