Who Owns Change?

For change to be successful and sustainable, each stakeholder must engage appropriately in business agility. However, when we ask “Who owns change?” there is not a single answer. Some people believe ownership is at the top of the hierarchy with business leaders and executive sponsors. Some say everyone involved in the project has ownership. The reality is actually more nuanced.

To determine who owns change and its effectiveness, we need to understand the mechanisms of business agility, as contexts and competencies influence who can, will, and should take ownership of projects and their outcomes.

Table of Contents

1.     Responsibility, Accountability, and Ownership

2.     The Conditions for Appropriate Ownership

3.     Fostering Ownership for Project Success

4.     Conclusion

Responsibility, Accountability, and Ownership

The Project Management Institute 2018 recommends all stakeholders take advantage of disruption rather than just reacting to it. This means taking ownership of creating and exploiting opportunities, which requires stakeholders to be more entrepreneurial or intrapreneurial.

We often hear the words: responsibility, accountability, and ownership, however, it is not always clear exactly how they are different.

• Responsibility is focused on completing tasks, while accountability is being responsible for task results.
• Responsibility and accountability focus on the project itself, but not beyond the project.
• Ownership has many definitions, but each definition implies commitment, initiative, and proactive behavior focused on creating constructive outcomes beyond the boundaries of the project. Therefore, ownership requires awareness of – and concern for – how the change project performs and interacts with the organization and environment beyond the project boundaries.

Accountability and responsibility require mostly technical skills, with limited personal engagement. Ownership is personal; it requires technical and strategic skills, as well as emotional engagement – being entrepreneurial or intrapreneurial with concern for outcomes.

Ownership Looks Different in Different Organizations

To stay relevant, organizations need to engage in business agility:

• collaborative, iterative
• innovating (exploring, experimenting, and learning), and
• commercializing (exploiting) those changes.

How agility is managed, and how ownership is distributed will vary depending on the characteristics of stakeholders and the organization.

Organizational Characteristics Determine Openness to Change

Openness to Change in Entrepreneurial Organizations

Clayton Christensen and his peers defined entrepreneurial ventures as creating opportunity by challenging the status quo through effectuation, a process of innovating and commercializing. Innovation is a creative process of questioning, observing, analyzing, experimenting, idea networking, etc.

In entrepreneurial organizations, where ongoing change and transformation is necessary to create and exploit opportunities, most often the commercializing team is largely the same as the innovation team. Therefore, learning happens individually and collectively throughout the organization.

Generally, people in entrepreneurial organizations are willing and able to be open to constant change. For stakeholders to transform the organization, they must also continue to learn and transform themselves. Therefore, resistance might arise from stakeholders who are not able or willing to continue learning and transforming.

Openness to Change in Established Organizations

Alternatively, in more established businesses, the focus is to exploit the opportunities that have been developed or identified. This process is causation, a more mechanical process of market research, financial analysis, etc. Therefore, change initiatives tend to be treated as mechanical processes, rather than innovative processes that interact with systems outside the immediate definition of the change.

In more established organizations, the process of innovation and commercializing tend to be separated among different teams. One team, usually with executive direction, will determine the parameters of projects and the expected goals of the change initiatives. Then the teams that operationalize and commercializes the changes will explore and experiment within the given parameters.

Strategic understanding and decision-making usually remain higher up in the hierarchy, while operational decision-making is distributed usually according to functions. The disaggregation of decision-making and operationalizing means individual and collective learning is limited. Learning is usually focused on extracting value, rather than creating value. Learning focused on mechanical and technical issues usually does not result in learning that supports systemic enhancement or change.

Since established organizations have stable and defined organizational and power structures, people are less willing to create change as it might undermine their status. And given that change efforts are often distributed through the organization, very few people have developed the ability to engage in the whole process of business agility. Resistance to change arises from stakeholders not willing or able to engage in the whole process of business agility.

Ownership in Organizations

The characteristics of the organization will influence where responsibility, accountability, and ownership reside, and therefore how strong the business agility culture is.

In entrepreneurial organizations, many people involved in a change initiative will be able to have some balance of responsibility, accountability, and ownership. Rewards in entrepreneurial organizations tend to be more connected to organizational successes, which reinforces peoples’ willingness to take ownership.

However, in more established organizations where work is disaggregated, rewards tend to be measurable actions and task results, rather than actual organizational outcomes. This incentivizes responsibility and accountability, while disincentivizes ownership among most stakeholders.

The Conditions for Appropriate Ownership

Although research shows many factors influence change project success and failure, the willingness and abilities of people to take ownership are significant factors. The 2018 PMI report identifies three reasons for project failure related to ownership: inadequate executive sponsorship, scope creep, and inability to deliver value.

Executive Sponsors Must Create the Conditions for Appropriate Ownership

According to the PMI report, executive sponsors should consistently and actively engage, support, and influence. They should:

• build psychologically safe relationships with project managers so there is a steady flow of relevant information and insights,
• communicate the project’s strategic alignment and roadmaps so managers and teams understand the overarching purpose and goals,
• remove roadblocks and drive organizational change so teams can focus on the work of change, and
• develop skills necessary for executive sponsorship.
• Scope creep and the inability to deliver relevant value are connected and related to executive sponsors’ ability to create strategic and practical alignment.

Developing Competencies and Purpose

Two recommendations not in the PMI report – but also necessary – are developing competencies and purpose. Executive sponsors and stakeholders must be supported to develop competencies of business agility, or collaborative effectuation (exploring, experimenting, and exploiting).

An under-explored source of project failure is purpose. Stakeholders must develop a common understanding of the project’s purpose: the client’s needs and motivations, and the direct and indirect influences of the desired outcomes. Once stakeholders understand the purpose of the project and the expected contributions, then it can be determined who needs to take responsibility, accountability, and ownership. 

The challenge with purpose for the sake of decision-making is that it cannot be dictated from the top down; some level of organic co-creation is required. The strategic group can provide expectations and parameters, however, all stakeholders must have an appropriate level of involvement throughout the project.

Given how dynamic many projects can be, it is essential that everyone understand the purpose of the project and the roles. The extra effort to shape and reshape the purpose supports effective collaboration throughout the project, especially during challenging times. 

Change Projects and Ownership Require a Holistic Perspective

Another report suggests the linear and mechanical approaches to projects overlook the constant, integrated evolution of multiple complex systems. Linear and mechanical approaches create brittle conditions: incomplete alignment, static roadmaps, overlooked roadblocks, inadequate relationships and collaboration, and irrelevant skill development

Developing and managing successful change projects depends on recognizing the complexity of the systems in which the project operates, including understanding the direct and indirect drivers of the project. If the project is approached as a mechanical, bounded entity, stakeholders will not be able to communicate to the team the essential, but subtle aspects of the ecosystem they each have, and how that might change the overall understanding of how to develop a successful project.

If stakeholders’ perspectives and contributions are not recognized or valued, they will be forced into lower-contribution responsibility or accountability.

Collaboration, alignment, purpose, and holistic perspectives are necessary for a thriving business agility culture so stakeholders are able and willing to take appropriate ownership and deliver relevant value.

Fostering Ownership for Project Success

The PMI’s report makes good recommendations on how to increase project success. However, it does not go far enough to define conditions where stakeholders are willing and able to take appropriate ownership. Relationships between strategic leaders and teams must extend beyond single relationships. There must be:

• appropriate collaborative processes with relevant stakeholders to collective develop
• an understanding of the purpose of the project (this is usually an evolving and iterative process), and
• a holistic understanding and roadmap of the systems in which the project exists.

Fostering the Ability and Willingness to Collaborate

Taking ownership requires all stakeholders – including the executives – to be emotionally engaged (willing), and to continuously develop the skills of ownership (ability).

Taking appropriate ownership requires individuals to develop their mindsets and competencies:

• entrepreneurial, holistic, collaborative, and growth mindset for ongoing exploration, experimentation, learning, transforming, and commercializing;
• the ability to graduate collaboration, question, engage in creative conflict and to leverage stress; and
• to collaborate cross-functionally so purpose, process, and solutions can be co-created.

For stakeholders to be willing to take appropriate ownership, leaders must create appropriate conditions so stakeholders can iteratively transform. This includes developing:

• purpose based on holistic understanding;
• a resilient business agility culture that supports collaborative effectuation (exploring, experimenting, and exploiting);
• recognizing organizations complex systems, that are largely dependent on human systems;
• creating psychological safety (so stakeholders are willing to take risks) and effective motivation (aligning rewards with business agility behavior); and
• meaningful celebration that connects to effective collaboration (process) and purpose achievement (outcome).

Conclusion

So, who does own change? The ideal answer is that everyone should take some appropriate level of ownership. However, reality is more nuanced.

Ownership requires more personal engagement and collaboration (rather than simply performative actions), which depend on:

• the characteristics and culture of the organization,
• the ability of executive sponsors to create the conditions for appropriate people taking ownership, and
• stakeholders being willing and able to take ownership,

By better understanding of when and how to foster ownership more effectively to create a culture of business agility, we will be able to create more successful change initiatives.

_______________________

How do you foster ownership? When do you choose not to foster ownership? What works for you? Are there other things you would add? 

Please Like this article and Connect with me if you think it is valuable.

You can accelerate breakthrough results by working with someone who can help you navigate the process and improve sustainable performance. I would be pleased to speak with you to explore how I can help you generate your sustainable competitive advantage and create your breakthrough results.

Catarina von Maydell, MBA, works with leaders, individuals, and teams to facilitate sustainable breakthrough performance improvement and growth. She has helped many of her clients achieve record-breaking performance.

Other articles you might be interested in:

Mindsets:

• Entrepreneurial, Growth, Holistic, and Collaborative  Mindsets

Collaborative & Entrepreneurial Competencies:

• Effectuation, Creative Conflict,  Graduated Creative-Conflict, Creating Collaboration, and the Creator-Coach-Challenger Paradigm

Personal Super-Powers:

• Body Wisdom, Mitigating Bias, and Generating Better Solutions

Leading Change and Transformation:

• Project Management Best Practices, Understanding Our Systems, Thinking Beyond Simple Metrics, and Deming’s 4 Factors of Change 
• Business Agility is About Humans, Human Dynamics in Organizations, 3-Levels of Leadership, Motivating Humans, Fostering Collaboration, Leadership and Resilience, and Psychological Safety