Building the Change-Ready, Agile Organization

The first time I built change capability and capacity across an organization, the idea for the change ready organization had come quickly and somewhat irrationally to the CEO of the organization.  A project failed. He knew something had to be done. He remembered a recent presentation about change readiness, change management and the dynamics of people working through changes brought about by the ever-changing business world. He reasoned that maybe people didn’t adopt the shiny new tool (the failed project) was because they couldn’t work through awareness and desire for the change and therefore, they didn’t attend training to get knowledge and ability. This was the case, the CEO was correct! The PMO, led by IT, decided they needed this new application. They set it up the technology and invited people to training. There was no communication to the stakeholders about why the company needed this new technology or how they should use it.

While the CEO thought that building this agile organization, along with change management embedded in the PMO, was the answer to all their woes, was the organization ready for this? One of the sponsors interrupted my change communication presentation to comment “why do we have to talk about change and help them through it, we pay them, just tell them to do it!”. This made me wonder if the culture was ready to build change capacity and capability.

There was a history or project management failure. The PMO was led by IT who decided what the business needed. The business didn’t like many of the PMO’s ideas. There was definite change saturation. This they all agreed upon and so at least twice a year, they shut down all projects and proceeded to have weeks of discussion about the issue without really getting to the solution.

The sponsor (CEO) of the change readiness initiatives went up and down the change curve throughout the program. This was not his priority over other matters of running the business. Just when we were ready to tell him that he was not the right fit for being the lead sponsor, he asked what we needed him to do. We had his complete buy-in! He agreed to support and promote a leadership workshop to help his staff understand the change portfolio and their role in helping us ensure the changes.

We learned a lot from this journey toward building the agile, change ready organization. We learned that building change capability across the organization requires:

·      Strong sponsors with strong conviction to make this happen. The Sponsor understands the importance of building a network of sponsors and cascading this throughout the organization.

·      Build mission, vision, and an elevator speech for the program. Use Marketing campaign methods to really sell the concept and the urgent need for change readiness.

·      Building Change Capability across the organization is a project and has PM and CM resources.

·      Sponsors stay engaged throughout the program and beyond reinforcing the change and making it stick. Change readiness must be embedded in the culture.

·      Most organizations need some culture change in the process of building out change capability and capacity. Look at the culture and the organization and anticipate risk and develop mitigation related to each risk.

·      Building change capability takes time and patience. It doesn’t happen overnight and is in in no way easy!

·      Establish that change is the new constant in the organization. Create a sense of urgency for change. Build on the message that change is not something to fear.

In the ideal corporate culture for frequently changing companies, the people of the organization:

·      Are self-motivated and feel ownership of the organization’s success. They think and behave like owners of the business – they are entrepreneurs for the business. They are fearless and will to work through any pain from change even if it means leaving their comfort zone. And this relates back to major Change Management theories that the employees must not become complacent.

·      Fully understand the corporate strategy and can tie the strategy to what they are doing.

·      Are valued - knowledge management and people development are considered important.

Honest and open communication is very important to successful change. This means that the ideal agile corporate culture encourages open door policies for managers and their direct reports with the managers having good listening skills and the ability to get down to root cause of any individual concerns. The people of the agile organization learn to recognize their own resistance to change and adjust their thinking and mindset to reach desire for the changes.

The organization:

·      The culture is innovative, and decisions can be made by employees as they do their work.

·      The culture sees change as good.

·      Leaders stay engaged. Everyone understands what we are trying to do, where we are going. The learning organization.

·      Everyone constantly learns and grows.

·      Organization siloes are eliminated.

·      Employees don’t get up and say I have to go to work, I wonder what is in store for me today. Instead they want to know what challenges the day will bring, what problems to solve.

·      Agile organizations embrace risk, allowing failure while empowering people to make decisions. Without this empowerment, the organization is not agile.

·      The agile organization will have a strong purpose, vision, mission and attainable goals. People understand how their work is tied to the corporate goals.

What are the rewards to the organization that constantly builds its change capability, capacity and readiness?

·      Quick response to strategic opportunities

·      Quickly identify and respond to market shifts

·      The business maintains the fast pace to keep the competitive edge

·      Leader in the industry and a highly successful business

The top performing companies understand that the pace of change is increasing and will continue to increase. These leading businesses understand that they must ensure the change ready organization by hiring people who will are suited to the agile culture and constantly building on improving the business.

“Your success in life isn't based on your ability to simply change. It is based on your ability to change faster than your competition, customers, and business.” -Mark Sanborn