Driving Transformation from Within: How ONA Finds Your Change Champions

In a world of constant disruptions—geopolitical challenges, rapid advancements in AI, energy concerns, and more—the greatest challenge for organizations isn’t just adapting; it’s staying resilient. Change is no longer an event; it’s a way of life. In this reality, trust becomes the foundation that holds organizations together. It’s what bridges the gap between leadership and employees, creating alignment and shared purpose when everything around them feels uncertain.

But trust isn’t built from the top down—it’s cultivated by those who connect people, foster collaboration, and drive momentum from within. These are your change champions. They’re the bridges between vision and action, between strategy and culture. Identifying them is critical, and that’s where Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) comes in. ONA uncovers the hidden influencers who can rally teams and inspire trust in times of upheaval. Because when disruption is the new normal, it’s the strength of these connections that turns chaos into opportunity and change into lasting success.

This article explores how ONA can help you identify and empower the right change champions to lead transformation. You'll learn about the critical role of change champions, the pitfalls of traditional selection methods, and how ONA uncovers hidden influencers who inspire trust and drive momentum. We’ll also explore real-world case studies that show how leveraging ONA can transform resistance into lasting success.

The Role of Change Champions in Organizational Transformation

Change champions play a crucial role in making organizational transformations successful. They act as the bridge between leadership and employees, fostering trust, facilitating communication, and driving influence across teams. By leveraging their credibility and connections, these individuals inspire others, accelerate the adoption of new ideas, and ensure change is not only implemented but deeply embraced throughout the organization:

• Facilitate Two-Way Communication: Champions ensure that employees’ concerns, ideas, and feedback are communicated upward to leadership and that organizational strategies are disseminated effectively.
• Build Trust: Employees are more likely to engage with and follow peers they trust than directives handed down by management.
• Drive Influence: Champions leverage their credibility and relationships to inspire others, creating ripple effects throughout the organization.

Accelerate Adoption: Influential champions spread new behaviors and ideas organically, making them more likely to be embraced and sustained.

Common Methods for Selecting Change Champions and Their Pitfalls

Selecting the right change champions is crucial for driving successful organizational transformation. However, traditional methods often fall short, failing to identify the individuals with the true influence needed to inspire trust and engagement. Whether relying on managerial nominations, performance metrics, or volunteers, these approaches can introduce biases and miss the hidden influencers who hold the key to effective change:

• Managerial Nominations:

How It Works: Managers select individuals they believe are influential or effective.

Risks: Managers may choose based on personal biases, perceived loyalty, or formal roles, rather than actual influence. This can alienate employees and reduce the credibility of the champions. Using managerial nominations creates a top-down mechanism that can feel imposed, undermining employees' sense of ownership and authenticity, and risking perceptions of aligning with management’s agenda rather than grassroots influence.

• Performance-Based Selection:

How It Works: High-performing employees are chosen based on metrics like sales figures or productivity.

Risks: High performers aren’t always influential. They may lack the trust or connections needed to drive change among their peers.

• Volunteering or Self-Nomination:

How It Works: Employees volunteer or nominate themselves as change champions.

Risks: Self-selection often attracts enthusiastic individuals, but not necessarily those with genuine influence. Hidden influencers who do not step forward may be overlooked.

Consequences of Choosing the Wrong Change Champions

Selecting the right change champions is critical for the success of any organizational transformation. When the wrong individuals are chosen, it can derail even the best-intentioned initiatives. Missteps in selection not only hinder the effectiveness of the champions but can also undermine trust, amplify resistance, and reduce the authenticity of the change effort. Below are the key risks of choosing the wrong change champions: Choosing the wrong individuals can have significant repercussions:

• Loss of Credibility: Employees may not trust or follow champions who lack genuine influence or respect within the organization.
• Resistance to Change: Misaligned champions can exacerbate resistance instead of mitigating it.
• Inefficiency: The initiative can lose momentum if champions fail to communicate effectively or lack the networks needed to spread change.
• Undermining Authenticity: Using a top-down nomination process can diminish employees' sense of ownership, making the initiative feel imposed and misaligned with grassroots involvement.

ONA: A Data-Driven Approach to Identifying Change Champions

Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) provides an objective way to identify true influencers within an organization by analyzing real communication and collaboration patterns. Unlike traditional methods, ONA uncovers both visible and hidden champions, ensuring change efforts are led by those trusted and respected by their peers. Here’s why ONA is the superior approach.

• Unbiased Selection: By analyzing actual communication patterns, collaboration networks, and information flows, ONA identifies the most connected and trusted individuals without relying on subjective judgments or managerial biases.
• Not Perceived as Top-Down Delegation: Champions selected through ONA are recognized by their peers as natural influencers, avoiding the perception that they were “assigned” an extra workload by leadership.
• Recognition and Empowerment of Influencers: Selecting change champions through ONA via peer nomination recognizes and validates the contributions of trusted influencers within the organization. This recognition empowers and motivates them to become enthusiastic drivers of change, inspiring their colleagues and sustaining momentum.
• Focus on Influence, Not Hierarchy: Unlike traditional methods, ONA uncovers hidden influencers—employees who may not hold formal leadership positions but are highly respected and sought after by their peers.
• Harnessing Indirect Influence:
• a) ONA goes beyond direct connections and leverages algorithms like PageRank to uncover the power of indirect influence. It highlights how even a single connection can make an individual highly influential if that connection is with someone who has a large, well-connected network. Influence ripples through these networks, enabling individuals to impact far more people than just their immediate contacts.
• b) This ripple effect means that someone with relatively few connections can still drive significant change by being strategically linked to key influencers. Organizations can harness this insight to amplify the spread of ideas, accelerate change, and ensure initiatives resonate across the entire network, leveraging both visible and hidden pathways of influence.
• Scale-Free Property of Networks:Organizational networks follow a power-law distribution: a small percentage of employees (the top 5-20%) hold disproportionate influence. ONA pinpoints these key individuals who are critical to spreading and sustaining change.

The Scale-Free Property of Networks and Its Implications for Influencer Selection

One of the fundamental reasons ONA excels in identifying change champions lies in its ability to uncover the scale-free property of organizational networks. Coined by our co-founder Albert-László Barabási, scale-free networks evolve through a process called preferential attachment. This means that individuals who already have a significant number of connections are more likely to attract new connections, creating a network where a few nodes (individuals) are exceptionally influential, while the majority have fewer connections.

Why Scale-Free Networks Matter

In organizations, the scale-free property means that a small number of employees hold the majority of influence. These individuals are not just well-connected; they serve as critical hubs that facilitate the flow of information and ideas. Identifying this small group is essential for effective change management, as their influence extends far beyond their immediate networks.

Implications for Change Champion Selection

• Targeting the Right Influencers: The Pareto principle applies—approximately 20% of employees hold 80% of the influence. However, due to the power-law distribution, the top 5% are even more impactful. These individuals can drive change at a scale that others cannot.
• Amplifying Reach: Through indirect influence, these champions can connect with otherwise isolated employees, ensuring that change initiatives reach all corners of the organization.
• Strategic Focus: By engaging the most influential nodes, organizations can achieve maximum impact with minimal effort, accelerating the adoption of new behaviors and ideas.

Real-World Example: Hidden Influencers Revealed by ONA

In a manufacturing company automating its processes, ONA revealed an unexpected key influencer—an Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) Specialist. Despite lacking a formal leadership role, this individual was trusted by employees and deeply connected informally. Regularly engaging with staff during site visits, they unintentionally became a primary source of unverified rumors due to unclear communication from leadership.

This surprising discovery highlighted the critical role of informal networks in times of change. By engaging the EHS Specialist and other top informal influencers with consistent messaging, the company was able to dispel misinformation, improve employee engagement, and significantly reduce resistance during the transformation. Click here to the full case study.

In a different context, an SAP rollout in a European property development subsidiary demonstrated how ONA can be applied to tackle resistance and drive adoption, showcasing the versatility of this approach across diverse organizational challenges.

From Resistance to Results: How Influencers Transformed an SAP Rollout

An SAP rollout in a property development subsidiary in Europe faced significant resistance, with employees clinging to familiar systems and feeling disconnected from the change. Using Maven7’s OrgMapper-INFLUENCE tool, the organization identified trusted influencers who bridged the gap between management and employees. These individuals led tailored training, fostered open communication, and addressed real concerns, transforming resistance into collaboration.

Within six months, SAP adoption was complete, errors disappeared, and employees embraced the system as their own. The cultural shift was profound—trusting and involving influencers turned a failing transition into a resounding success, showcasing the power of influence in driving change. Click here to the full case study.

Benefits of ONA-Selected Change Champions

Change champions identified through ONA bring unparalleled benefits:

• Faster Adoption: Their trusted relationships and network positions allow for quicker dissemination of new ideas and behaviors.
• Greater Employee Engagement: Champions ensure that employees feel heard and valued, fostering a culture of collaboration and inclusion.
• Sustainable Change: By leveraging influencers’ trust and credibility, organizations can embed changes deeply into their culture.

Conclusion

Selecting the right change champions is critical to the success of any organizational transformation. While traditional methods often fall short, ONA offers a precise, data-driven approach that identifies genuine influencers who can drive change from the ground up. By leveraging ONA, organizations can build a community of champions who not only embody the change but also inspire it in others, ensuring lasting impact and resilience in an ever-evolving workplace.

Harness the power of ONA to unlock the potential of your change champions—because real change starts with the right people.