Tag Archives: organizational change

What’s the Driving Force Behind Engagement?

April 26, 2023Change Leadership, Foundations for Changebuy-in, change, change leadership, change management, engagement, leading change, meaningful engagement, organization change, organizational changeGary Frank

In my previous post Meaningful Engagement vs. Buy-In: What's the Difference and Why Should I Care?, I posed two questions.

“… why do we continue to manage change in ways that do not truly engage people and foster conditions where “meaningful engagement” can occur commonly?
Why do we continue to settle for “buy-in” when we want and actually need much more?"

I suggested five reasons why many organizations settle for buy-in rather than aspire to meaningful engagement. I refer you to the previous post for the specifics (Buy-In vs. Engagement: What’s the Difference and Why Should I Care?). Briefly, though, I argued that buy-in more often triumphs as the objective of change management because it doesn’t require the same level of leader or manager commitment that meaningful engagement does. Aiming for buy-in just doesn’t demand as much time and effort and, in the end, unfortunately, expedience wins.

BUT, and it’s a big but, I argued that tacit buy-in doesn’t produce nearly as much commitment as meaningful engagement and the co-creation of change can. Done right, meaningful engagement in organizational change has the potential to:

Strengthen everyone’s understanding of the need for and direction of change
Deepen commitment to the change process and objectives
Stimulate co-creation of solutions
Build business literacy and other important business skills
Accelerate the pace of change, and
Propel the change beyond the envisioned outcome

In this post, we’ll continue this exploration of meaningful engagement and pose two additional questions.

How does meaningful engagement produce more than simple buy-in?
What are the dynamics at work?

Continue reading →

The Promise of Change Management as an Unconscious Competence

August 1, 2022Change Management Competencychange management competence, evolution of change, innovating change, leading change, organizational changeGary Frank

This is the last of four posts exploring change management as an unconscious competence. In the first post (What If Change Management Were An Unconscious Competence? ), I presented the four stages of competence model and used it as a lens to consider the state of organizational change management ability. I observed that Stage Four organizations – ones where change management has evolved to the level of an unconscious competence – are rare but do exist.

In the second post (Change Management Evolved), I explored what we would see if we were to encounter a Stage Four organization. In the third post (Change Management as Unconscious Competence: What Does It Take to Get There?), I presented what I believe are the essential elements required to develop Stage Four competence.

In this fourth and last post, I look at what Stage Four change management competence can produce and why this level of change competence should be the aspiration of every organization. Continue reading →

Who Should Be Responsible for Managing Change?

February 12, 2022Change Leadership, Change Managementchange management, change management competence, managing change, organization change, organizational change, transitionGary Frank

Effective change doesn’t happen by accident. It is the result of careful planning and thoughtful execution. Leaders play a pivotal role in change because they possess legitimate power to sanction the change, establish the vision, provide direction and resources, and hold organizational members accountable. Everyone looks to the leader for guidance and that person must model the way for the rest of the organization.

Change would be a much tidier process if that were all it took – an effective leader who knows what to do and how to do it and is at the front leading the charge.

But as important as the leader’s role is, it isn’t the leader who ultimately executes change. Change (from simple to complex) is always a matter of people in impacted areas making the transition from the way things are now to the way they’re supposed to be in the future.

Transition at the people level involves, among other things:

Answering their questions about why and what it will mean for them
Describing how things will be in the future
Helping them understand whether or not they will be in that future
Involving them to co-create that future
Providing a credible plan for moving forward that speaks to them at their level
Communicating frequently and reliably about what’s happening now and what will happen next
Learning new skills and applying new knowledge
Becoming part of a new work group

How does this all get done? Who is leading the charge on this? More to the point, who should be leading the charge on this? Continue reading →

Change Management as Unconscious Competence: What Does It Take to Get There?

February 6, 2022Change Leadership, Change Management, Change Management Competency, Engagementalignment, change leadership, change management competency, evolution of change, innovation, leading change, organizational changeGary Frank

This is the third of four posts exploring the possibility of change management as an unconscious competence. In the first post (What If Change Management Were An Unconscious Competence? ), I presented the four stages of competence model and used it as a lens to consider the state of organizational change management ability. I observed that Stage Four organizations – ones where change management has evolved to the level of an unconscious competence – are rare but do exist.

In the second post (Change Management Evolved), I explored what we would see if we were to encounter a Stage Four organization. In this post, I will present what I believe it takes to develop Stage Four competency.

Like any form of superior human achievement, reaching Stage Four requires effort and discipline. Superior achievement doesn’t happen by chance. Additionally, however, in an organizational setting where many people in different units are involved, there are other elements that must be added to effort and discipline to complete the formula. I have identified six such elements that help to make Stage Four attainable. Continue reading →

Change Management Evolved

November 2, 2021Change Leadership, Change Management, Change Management Competencyalignment, change leadership, evolution of change, innovation, leading change, organizational changeGary Frank

This is the second of four posts exploring the possibility of change management as an unconscious competence. In the first post (What If Change Management Were An Unconscious Competence?), I presented the four stages of competence model and used it as a lens to consider the state of organizational change management ability. I observed that, in my experience, Stage Four organizations – ones where change management has evolved to the level of an unconscious competence – are uncommon but do exist. These are organizations that have purposefully committed the time, resources, and effort to establish a cultural context that enables change management competency at this level.

Let’s push the exploration further. If you or I were to encounter a Stage Four organization – one where change management is a highly evolved competency – what would we learn and see? Continue reading →

Leading Change in the Middle

April 6, 2016Change Leadershipbecoming an effective change leader, change leadership, change management, communication, leading change, organizational changeGary Frank

Leading change is challenging enough even when your job title is President or Chief Executive Officer. However, when your title isn’t President or Chief anything and you lead in the mid-level of your organization, leading change is even more challenging. That’s because:

YOU didn’t get to decide on the change
YOU didn’t get to set the vision
YOU may or may not have been involved in developing the change plan or the messaging
But YOU ARE expected to execute the change for the unit you lead

What can you do to lead change effectively in the middle? Continue reading →

Impacts of Organizational Change

January 4, 2016Foundations for Changechange impacts, change management, impact of change, organizational changeGary Frank

People prefer stability. It may seem odd to read that as the opening sentence of a blog on the subject of organizational change, but let me say that again. People prefer stability. It’s part of the human condition. For all of the inevitability and necessity of change that we talk about, we actually prefer things to be stable and predictable.

When change occurs – and it always does - we find it disruptive. Exactly how disruptive a change may be is highly individual. The amount of disruption we experience is a function of how much the change affects our individual construct of reality – the routines, preferences, habits, patterns, and ways we understand things. As we all know, this disruption can range from minor inconvenience to the “sky is falling.”

It is axiomatic that the level of change management that must be applied to a change effort is directly proportional to the amount of change people will experience. If this is true, how do you assess the impact of change in order to plan for the level of support? Where do you look and what do you examine?

Continue reading →

Leading Change: The Special Case of the Middle Manager

September 29, 2015Change Leadershipchange, leading change, middle manager, organizational changeGary Frank

Leading change is too difficult and complicated to accomplish alone. It requires a support network to augment your personal sponsorship and direct leadership. Much has been written about building an effective sponsor network and it’s all relevant and true. However, there is a significant resource at your disposal that is often over-looked and untapped.

Continue reading →

What Does It Take to Lead Change?

September 4, 2015Change Leadershipalignment, change leadership, communicating change, impact of change, leadership, leading change, organizational change, urgency, visionGary Frank

In today’s world, the pace of organizational change has increased dramatically and there’s no end in sight. This pace is being driven by escalating competition, globalization (including emerging economies like BRICS), the pace of technical innovation, and the demand for ever-increasing improvement in performance. Ultimately, this means that leaders have to execute change in timeframes that are increasingly shorter.

Given this challenging set of circumstances, what’s a leader to do?

Continue reading →