How useful are selling skills for Stakeholder Engagement? Stakeholder engagement is frequently difficult. The change team need to get stakeholders engaged and often positively involved in a change for success. Since the power in the relationship often lies with the stakeholder it seems to me this is a similar situation to a salesman-customer interaction. There …
Category archives: Change Function
The failure dilemma for change management
The Dilemma What about the mythical 70% failure rate for change in organisations? This has been searched for quite dilligently in the literature by Mark Hughes; who concluded that although well reported by very respected reporters, there was very little substantial measurement data to support the reports. Hence it becomes an urban myth. The dilemma …
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Middle managers to drive change
What does it take to succeed in change? Middle managers in most organisations have a huge influence over the success of organisational change. Most middle managers are passive about change; a few step up to delivering change; all of them need to be behind the change. Some recent blogs point to how to get middle …
The strategy dilemma for change
Translating a guess into a plan The dilemma for change managers leading a strategic organisation change is translating the uncertainty of the strategic analysis and decisions into actionable plans to deliver benefits. The problem is that there is no right answer to the question “what should our strategy be?” The strategists have looked into the …
Three Myths for Change
Applying strategic thinking to change In a recent blog posting on HBR Nick Tassler wrote about three myths he has found in strategic thinking. I thought these ideas have just as much relevance for Managing Change. These three myths help to focus on doing the right things to make a difference with the resources available …
Watch a blunder in action?
Universal Credit blunders on A number of recent news items and blog posts in the technical sphere are signposting the UK Government’s Universal Credit programme as the next Government blunder. See our recent blog posts on human bias and systemic problems lessons learned based on a recently published book by Prof. Anthony King and Sir …
It's still the Senior Manager wot did it
Contributors to Change Success A recent email from Prosci about their 2013 survey (results published this year) lists the top seven contributors to change success. This is probably the most important result from the survey and the most widely reported. Top of the list, again, and by a large margin is ‘active and visible executive …
Change Manager Standards
Two new standards announced In the last few months two organisations have announced standards to define the role of the Change Manager. We wait for years for the role to get a formal definition and then two turn up at once. We believe that these standards are an important development in the maturity of managing …
Making Decicions Work
Before, During, After I have put up a number of posts about making decisions and especially the key role of decision making in Change Management; such as ‘Good enough decisions‘ and ‘making decisions at the right time‘. I have come across a quote, attributed to Scott McNealy a founder and CEO of Sun Microsystems, which …
Do you know why?
Why is it important? Three things popped into my mind this week: a paper in the recent Sloan Management Review about the basic question every project should answer; a graphic in a book about project types due to Eddie Obeng; and recollections about reviewing projects. They all revolve around the question ‘why are we doing …