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Being an agent of change is difficult and the rewards are not often immediately visible. However, for those with the stamina and the will to act as an agent of change, below is some food for thought.
How does one act as an agent of Change?
With difficulty. There is no formula for success. Managing change is difficult, it is unpopular, you are unpopular, the decisions you make are not liked and when you work with those who struggle to separate the personal from the professional – you are not liked.
For those who are eager to take on this role, success depends on several factors which can either work in your favor or work against you. Here are five things that I’ve found factor into leading effective transformational change.
Is the organization supportive of what you are trying to accomplish?
Sounds simple and easy enough, right? Wrong. At one point in my career, I was asked by a functional leader to lead organizational change by driving a more robust marketing strategy.
As I took on the role, I knew that we needed to have greater analytical rigor and focus on the customer, but did not know much else about the business. When I began assessing the challenges ahead of me by doing what I do best – asking lots of questions – I ran into trouble. I did not realize that asking questions would invoke such a defensive response. As if to say, why are you asking me this? I’m not doing anything wrong.
I quickly found myself in a situation where I was on the outside looking in – and no one was willing to help crack a window or open a door to let me in. And I found out that while I had the support of my manager, what I was hoping to accomplish was not broadly communicated by the organization. I did not have the support of the general manager, who himself, questioned the value of the marketing department.
So as I acted as a lone change agent, I learned my first lesson. Make sure you have the support of the organization around you. You can act as a single change agent, but it sure makes it a heck of a lot easier when others are bought into what you are trying to achieve. In the latter scenario, leadership sets the tone for their expectations and instead of acting as one lone change agent, you are acting on behalf of the rest of the organization.
Changing behaviors and attitudes does not happen overnight.
One of the biggest misconceptions about leading change is that leaders will set deadlines and timelines for when things need to execute and think that by that date, we will have a go-live plan. Which we will… but unfortunately, you wont have organizational buy-in on that date.
It takes a few years to drive transformational change – YEARS. Not months, not one year, not two years, YEARS. Did you forget that organizations are made up of people? You might be able to implement new processes and procedures as well as deadlines for adoptions. But changing attitudes and behaviors is an ongoing process. You never stop. Imagine how long it takes you to change behaviors in your personal life, it’s no different in your professional life. It’s just hard.
You can over-communicate.
For those of you who think there is no such thing, well there is. Having gone through an acquisition, I can tell you that the leaders had almost monthly communications with employees about the pace of integration activity. It seemed like the meetings went on forever, but when I walked out, I didn’t feel like any real information was communicated. So I stopped attending.
The meetings were not meaningful. I was expecting to hear information about how the integration was going to affect me, but I never did. Did I expect them to communicate personnel-specific information in these meetings? No, not really. But I knew that integration was happening, new systems put in place, new processes implemented. At one point, I just wanted to be told “here is the new process, go do it.” Not spend my time having my hand held about the new systems and new processes
Do you have thick skin?
It will be difficult at times – a lot of times. As you question your decisions, your resolve, wondering what you are doing there. There is a large part of leading transformational change that is personal. It shouldn’t be. But the reality is that it is. You will face strong headwinds where you will often be the lone voice. You will have to learn to be ok in the loneliness and build strong allies. Which leads us to our last point.
Build strong allies.
Leading transformational change does not happen because one person wills it to happen. It happens because a team of individuals helps to communicate it, advocates it, advocates you, and probably most importantly provides you with support and guidance where you might least expect it.
Insight
Being an agent of change can be very rewarding – if you have the character for it. It requires fortitude, conviction and vision. The impacts of the decisions that are made by change agents have far reaching effects. It may be difficult at times but well worth it in the end.
FEATURED INSIGHTS
Acquisitions, integrations and change management
