How to build change capability without training
Building change capability is ultimately the goal of organisations. Most businesses aspire to be fast-moving, transformative and agile. With the increasing speed of change, organisations need to have the capability to respond accordingly. The speed in which organisations are able to flex and adapt accordingly can mean success or failure. During Covid we have all seen businesses that have closed shop. Others have pivoted and come up with new products and services to survive and prosper.
As change practitioners we all aspire to build strong and impactful change capability with the organisation that we work with. We want to see leaders with strong skills to lead their teams through the change process. We also want to see teams with the tenacity and attitude to be open to and work through the change embedment process.
As change practitioners we all aspire to build strong and impactful change capability with the organisation that we work with. We want to see leaders with strong skills to lead their teams through the change process. We also want to see teams with the tenacity and attitude to be open to and work through the change embedment process.
Doesn’t capability building mean training?
Yes you must have heard your stakeholder say this a million times. The only way to build capability is through training? Wrong. Training is one way to convey knowledge. This is one aspect of learning. But it does not guarantee that the trainee will have the ability or motivation to apply the learning into the workplace. Yet companies spend significant amount of investment sending employees to change capability training. Absolutely, having the knowledge is an important part of acquiring the capability, but again not the only part.
So what else can we do to improve change capability?
Many companies use the 70:20:10 rule in capability development. This means:
– 70% of development should be focused on job-based learning such as challenging assignment
– 30% of development should be from work relationships such as mentoring and coaching
– Only 10% of development should be from training and coursework
This does not mean that these three elements of learning cannot be blended together. In fact, some of the most impactful learning components combine all three elements. A lot of change leadership capability programs combine coursework, together with a real-life assignment on implementing a change project. This is also supplemented with group based coaching.
What are other ways to build change capability?
Role modelling
Role modelling has a powerful and pervasive impact on a large number of people, especially when it’s coming from senior leaders. Consciously or subconsciously, the behaviours of senior leaders in managing change can shape the behaviours of those around the leader. How change is communicated, how impacted employees are engaged, and how behaviours are reinforced can be observed and proliferated across the organisation.
Change governance
Other than individual change capability skills, organisations must also build their ability to manage the how change is controlled and monitored across the company. How change governance is designed, and how decisions are made across the organisation are absolutely critical to change capability.
This capability includes:
– How change governance bodies use data to make decisions to monitor and control the planning and implementation of change
– The ability to use various data sources to ‘pulse-check’ on the change readiness of different parts of the business for change
– Quality of decision making process in balancing various business factors of performance, risk, benefit realisation and engagement
– Clarity of the remit of different change governance bodies and the decisions that they are able to make, e.g. at a business unit level versus enterprise level
Operational change cadence
This refers to the capability of a business unit in operationalising change. This includes all facets of business-as-usual changes as well as larger initiatives. Critical elements of operational change cadence includes:
To continue reading please visit https://thechangecompass.com/how-to-build-change-capability-without-training/
Transformation, Change, & Program Leadership | Digital Transformer | Blogger | Public Speaker | PMP, Prosci, LaMarsh & Toastmaster's Certifications
3 年Sonia Kaur Doogal - good timing! Hope this blog helps...
Working with leadership teams to drive their team effectiveness and organisational health - combining change management practice, team focus, and solid tech. With positivity and impact.
3 年Euan, thank you for writing up this article and it covers two convictions from my side: a) training is not capability training - I learned the lesson many times that knowing the theory doesn't mean you are changing your behaviour and activities at work. When we apply the concepts that is when we have achieved new skills. b) are change management skills inherent? - in the last century or so, we as global society became very transactional. this has covered - in my opinion - some of our inherent skills how to build relationships, respect the members of our community and take new endeavours as a journey with peers (and not an egocentric victory). Is it possible that when we start to put some of the transactional methods away, that we automatically are better at managing change?