Chapter 12
Strategies for Leading a Change

Pat Zigarmi and Judd Hoekstra

Leaders often get overwhelmed when they have to implement change. In many ways, they feel caught in a lose-lose proposition. If they try a necessary change, they risk unleashing all kinds of pent-up negative feelings in people. The resisters are seen as troublemakers trying to ruin something good. On the other hand, if leaders don’t constantly drive change, their organization will become obsolete, and everyone will lose their jobs. It’s been said that if you don’t change, you are dying.

Add to that lose-lose perspective a glance at the list of fifteen Predictable Reasons Why Change Efforts Typically Fail, which we discussed in the preceding chapter, and leaders could be immobilized around change. That’s why Pat Zigarmi and Judd Hoekstra developed the Leading People Through Change Model—to make the seemingly complicated simple (see Figure 12.1).1

Figure 12.1 The Leading People Through Change Model

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Nine Change Leadership Strategies

In Chapter 11, “Organizational Leadership,” we focused on the first three predictable reasons why change efforts typically fail. People leading the change think that announcing the change is the same as implementing it. People’s concerns with change are not surfaced or addressed, and those being asked to change are not involved in planning the change.

The upper portion of the Leading People Through Change Model defines nine change leadership strategies and their respective outcomes. While these change leadership strategies are in response to the six stages of concern, their focus is on the remaining twelve reasons why change efforts typically fail. They also describe a process for leading people through change that differs dramatically from how change is introduced in most organizations.

Strategy 1: Expand Involvement and Influence

Outcome: Buy-In

As the Leading People Through Change Model shows, the first change leadership strategy, Expand Involvement and Influence, must be used consistently throughout the change process. It’s at the heart of the change leadership strategies.

The core belief of our approach to leading organizational change is that the best way to initiate, implement, and sustain change is to increase the level of influence and involvement from the people being asked to change, surfacing and resolving concerns along the way. This was a key strategy in the preceding chapter, when we discussed dealing with the first three reasons why change efforts typically fail. Without this strategy, you cannot achieve the cooperation and buy-in you need from those responsible for making the changes you’ve proposed.

What may seem obvious to you isn’t obvious to many leaders trying to implement organizational changes. They believe changes will be implemented much faster if they make quick decisions, and it is quicker to make decisions with fewer people providing input into the decision-making process. While it is true that decisions can be made faster when fewer people are involved, faster decisions do not usually translate into faster and better execution. The “top-down, minimal involvement” leadership approach ignores the critical difference between compliance and commitment. People may comply with the new directive for a short time until the pressure is off and then return to old behavior.

Providing opportunities for involvement and influence produces long-term, sustainable commitment to a new way of doing business, rather than short-term compliance. Keep Figure 12.2 in mind as you think about how much you want to involve people in the change process: Resistance increases the more people sense that they cannot influence what is happening to them.

Figure 12.2 Perceived Loss of Control Increases Resistance to Change

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If people aren’t treated as if they are smart and would reach the same conclusion about the need to change as the change leadership team, they perceive a loss of control. Their world is about to change, but they have not been asked to talk about “what is,” explore options, or consider possibilities. Their information concerns have not been addressed. Similarly, if personal concerns are not surfaced and acknowledged, people lose a sense of autonomy. They collude with others; they become anxious, and their resistance increases. Then, when T-shirts with a slogan are given out and everyone is sent to “one size fits all” training, people begin to believe that the organization really is out of control. This puts their sense of control in jeopardy, which again increases resistance. The bottom line is that people have to influence the change they are expected to make, or, as Robert Lee said:

Flexibility: Using a Number of Different Change Leadership Strategies to Successfully Lead Change

The eight organizational change leadership strategies on the perimeter of the model proactively address the other twelve Predictable Reasons Why Change Efforts Typically Fail. They also illustrate a sequential process for initiating, implementing, and sustaining change.

To help make the remaining eight change leadership strategies come alive, we offer the following case study involving a problem that has plagued millions in America.

Case Study: Non-Support-Paying Parents

As many as 20 million children in America may have noncustodial parents who avoid their child support obligations. According to the Federal Office of Child Support, the total unpaid child support in the U.S. is close to $100 billion; 68 percent of child support cases were in arrears. An overwhelming majority of children—particularly minorities—residing in single-parent homes, where child support is not paid, live in poverty.

In the United States, child support enforcement is a loose confederation of state and local agencies with different guidelines that answer to the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement. Getting agencies to work together is the greatest challenge. While legislation exists to enforce child support payments, there is too much bureaucracy and not enough manpower to pursue non-support-paying parents across state lines and take them into custody. As a result, many of these parents have beaten the system.

Up until the 1990s, information on these parents was stored in paper files in clerks’ offices in the county where the parent resided. County clerks were responsible for using this information to try to enforce the collection of child support. Often, as a county clerk got close to tracking down a parent not paying court-ordered child support payments, the parent would move to a different county or even a different state.

With the major challenge of sharing information stored in paper files across county lines or even state lines, it became nearly impossible to catch the non-support-paying parents. As a result, custodial parents and kids who were due to receive child support ended up losing.

As frustration grew over this situation, the federal government decided to take on the challenge. In the early 1990s, federal legislation mandated that each state implement an electronic tracking system that facilitated the sharing of current information across county and state lines to better enable the tracking of these parents. This may sound like a relatively simple change to make, considering that computers and the Internet are now commonplace in most businesses. However, many county clerks were in their fifties and sixties, lived in rural areas, had never used a computer, and had been trying to track non-support-paying parents with a notepad, pencil, and telephone for decades.

Do you think the county clerks being asked to change had concerns about the proposed change? Of course they did. Many of these county clerks had information concerns, such as how having a new computer would improve the situation in their county. In counties that were already doing a good job of collecting child support, people wondered if they needed to participate, or if they could continue using their paper files as long as they were successful. Counties that had been using a computer system for years to track cases wondered if they needed to use the new computer system, or if they could keep using their current system. People wondered how long it would take to move the information from their paper files to the computer.

Many of the county clerks had personal concerns as well. People said things like “I’ve never used a computer. Will I be taught how? Can I do it? If I can’t learn to use the new computer system, will I still have a job? Besides using the new computer system, how else is my job changing? This sounds like a lot of extra work. I’m not ready for this.” These questions are typical at this stage.

In addition, the clerks had implementation concerns. They wanted to know when they would be trained on the new computer system. They wanted to know who to contact if they needed help after training. Many wondered if any counties were “going live” before they were, and they wondered if they could talk with people in those counties. They also wondered when the whole state would be up and running on the new system. Finally, they wondered what would happen if the computer system went down or was unavailable for a period of time.

Once the change was in motion, some of the clerks brought forward impact concerns. For example, they wanted to know if they were catching any non-support-paying parents they wouldn’t have caught without the new system. They wanted to know how much more money they were collecting compared to when they were doing things the old way. Many were curious to know if their customers (custodial parents) saw a positive change in how they were working with them and the results they were achieving.

In time, the clerks’ collaboration concerns began to surface. Here are some of their comments: “I’ve seen the success of this new system firsthand. Is there anybody who is not yet convinced that this is a good idea?”

“I’m so glad I got to be part of the pilot. I can’t wait to go back to my county and share the good news. They are currently pretty skeptical about this new system.”

“The system is working pretty well within the counties around us that have ‘gone live.’ Are there other counties or states we should be working with that we haven’t connected with yet?”

Once the new system was up and running, the clerks brought forward their refinement concerns. While they acknowledged that the new system was an improvement over how things used to be, they suggested areas that might be improved. For example, a question came up about how they could connect their system to other systems (other county and state child support systems, the Department of Motor Vehicles, the new-hire database, the IRS) so that they could better track people and enforce the collection of child support.

Strategy 2: Select and Align the Leadership Team

Outcome: One Voice

The second change leadership strategy is Select and Align the Leadership Team. This strategy addresses the following reason why change efforts fail.

Why Change Efforts Typically Fail: Reason 6

6. The change leadership team does not include early adopters, resisters, or informal leaders.

Select the change leadership team. It is not possible to bring about change in an organization with a single leader. As David Nadler says, “The scope of today’s changes is too much for one CEO—even a very charismatic one—to pull off alone.” Change requires a strong and broad-based change leadership team that is aligned and that speaks with one voice to the larger organization. The outcome is a unified message that minimizes ambivalence and confusion, a message that is compelling and inspiring.

In Chapter 10, “Situational Team Leadership,” we described the importance of teamwork and how to build a high performing team. How do you build a change leadership team?

First, it is important to select both sponsors and day-to-day change leadership team members. A sponsor is an executive who can legitimize the change and who has the formal authority to deploy resources to support the initiation, implementation, and reinforcement of the change. A member of the change leadership team is responsible for the day-to-day leadership of the change—the execution of the change leadership strategies described by the Leading People Through Change Model.

As you identify potential sponsors and members of the change leadership team, consider whether they possess the skills and traits required to lead change. Consider the following questions:

• Have they led or been part of successful change efforts in the past?

• Do they have the time and availability required of a change leader?

• Do they have the respect of their peers?

• Are they highly skilled?

• Are they willing to play the role of devil’s advocate?

• Are they effective communicators who are willing to raise the concerns of colleagues who may be less inclined to play devil’s advocate?

• Do they have the diversity necessary to think outside the box and come up with the best solutions to challenges that arise?

In our child support example, it was critical that the change leadership team include county clerks representing a diverse set of counties across the state: rural and urban counties, a county already using computers to track non-support-paying parents, a county using only pen and paper to track non-support-paying parents, a county with good performance regarding collection of child support, and a county with poor performance regarding collection of child support.

The change leadership team should be a representative sample of the organization—advocates and resisters, formal and informal leaders, and leaders at all levels of the organization.

It’s important to embrace the resisters of a change effort. We once worked with a company where a manager appeared to be very resistant to the changes being proposed by the executive team. This manager had lots of credibility within his department and could sway people to support or block the change. Once the executive proposing the changes allowed this manager to be involved in many of the decisions regarding the change and to take an active leadership role, this manager ended up being one of the strongest supporters and leaders of the change. It’s been said that

It’s also important to include a variety of perspectives and roles that represent the entire organization on the change leadership team. This way, various perspectives can be surfaced and worked through before final decisions are made. Although it may feel uncomfortable at first, it is very helpful to include at least one or two people who would be considered “resistant” and who can articulate the concerns of those who share that perspective.

When you include a representative sample of the organization, people throughout the organization feel that their point of view and concerns are being heard. A diverse team also means that there are more opportunities for advocates to be in contact with people who are neutral, before they become resistant. When resisters have a forum to surface and address their concerns, they often become the most effective problem solvers and spokespeople for the change.

Align and build a high performing change leadership team. Once the change leadership team is selected in a way that increases opportunities for involvement and influence, consider how important it is for this to be a high performing team. It is extremely damaging to an organization when its leaders are not on the same page and communicate inconsistent messages to the organization during times of change.

We worked with an organization where the top executive was trying to get buy-in from his executive team for a series of changes. Some of his team did not agree with what was proposed. Although there were meetings to discuss the changes, one executive did not voice his concerns. By being silent, he implied that he supported the change leadership team’s recommendations and that he would communicate a consistent message to his people. Instead, the team member chose to publicly criticize the top executive and the changes that were being proposed to members of his department. He tried to subvert the change outside the change leadership team.

When people see a lack of alignment at the top, they know they don’t have to align. In addition, they know that without alignment, the change will stall or derail and that they can outlast it. In this example, as a result of his actions, the subversive executive was fired. The team members agreed to this action during the team chartering session. It sent a strong message about alignment to the whole organization. It is important to note that the executive was fired as much for not voicing his concerns to his team as for disparaging the top executive and the proposed changes.

While it may not always lead to someone being fired, communication of inconsistent messages during a change effort results in people freezing and waiting for the leaders to sort out the inconsistencies. Negative spin from one member of a change leadership team will kill a change effort. Again, with a broad, diverse team, there are more people to communicate, but the challenge is to get them to communicate one message and to get them to listen as much as talk when they communicate. Remember: Sustainable organizational change happens through conversation and collaboration, not by unilateral action by a few.

Strategy 3: Explain the Business Case for Change

Outcome: Compelling Case for Change

The third change leadership strategy, Explain the Business Case for Change, addresses information concerns.

When leaders present and explain a rational reason for the change, the outcome is a compelling case that helps people understand the change being proposed, the rationale for the change, and why the status quo is no longer a viable option. This change leadership strategy addresses the following reason why change efforts fail.

Why Change Efforts Typically Fail: Reason 4

4. There is no compelling reason to change. The business case is not communicated.

Expect that many people in the organization will not understand the need for a change; they will feel good about the job they are currently doing. As a result, they will have information concerns and likely will ask questions such as “What is the change? Why is it needed? What’s wrong with the way things are now? How much and how fast does the organization need to change?”

Most likely, those initiating the change were frustrated by something that was wrong with the status quo or were anxious about an opportunity that would be lost by continuing with business as usual. This spirit of discontent with the status quo needs to be shared and felt by those being asked to change.

Suppose a leader mistakenly attempts to create and communicate a change-specific vision to the organization before demonstrating that the status quo is no longer a viable option. The inertia of the status quo will likely prove too strong, and the very people whose cooperation the leader needs are much less likely to embrace the picture of the future the leader intends to create. As John Maynard Keynes said:

In the child support example described earlier, it was critical to have custodial parents and county clerks share their stories about the frustration and hopelessness they felt in trying to track down and enforce the collection of child support from non-support-paying parents with only pen-and-paper support from government agents. Without county clerks feeling this frustration in some way, shape, or form, it was very unlikely that they would be willing to learn a new computer system and adopt new ways of working just because it was mandated by federal legislators.

As you build the case for change, one of the best ways to get buy-in from employees is to share information broadly and then ask people at all levels in the organization to tell you why they believe the organization needs to change. Ask people for their reasons why the organization needs to change even if you already think you know the answers. By doing so, your case for change will be more compelling in people’s eyes, because they came up with it. As a result of their ownership in the case for change, people are much more likely to leave the status quo behind.

Returning to the example we cited in Chapter 4, “Empowerment Is the Key,” The Ken Blanchard Companies needed to make a number of changes as a result of the economic downturn following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The leaders shared information broadly with the organization regarding projected revenue, current expenses, and break-even figures. This brought people face to face with the reality of the situation and ensured that the organization understood that “business as usual” was no longer a viable option. Then the leaders asked associates what would happen if the status quo were maintained. The associates clearly stated that the company’s survival was at stake. As a result of their involvement in building the case for change, associates bought into a number of cost-cutting initiatives, even when the initiatives weren’t in their own best interest.

Strategy 4: Envision the Future

Outcome: Inspiring Vision

The fourth change leadership strategy, Envision the Future, addresses both information and personal concerns. To quote Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

When leaders envision the future, they create an inspiring vision that motivates people in the organization and that unleashes their power and potential. This change leadership strategy addresses the following reason why change efforts fail.

Why Change Efforts Typically Fail: Reason 5

5. A compelling vision that excites people about the future has not been developed and communicated.

It is critical for the organization to have a compelling vision that inspires and excites people and makes them want to stay. When any organizational change is considered, it is always important to revisit the organization’s vision to provide rationale for the change. At times, this may mean modifying the organization’s vision or creating a new one, such as what happened when Louis Gerstner took over IBM. A new, compelling picture of the future when the proposed change is implemented must support the organization’s vision, including its purpose and values.

The process used to create a vision, whether it is for an entire organization or for a specific change initiative, is the same. This process was described in detail in Chapter 2. As Ken Blanchard and Jesse Stoner point out in Full Steam Ahead! Unleash the Power of Vision in Your Company and Your Life, the process you use to develop a vision is as important as the vision itself. In other words, if people are involved in the process and feel the vision is theirs—as opposed to some words on a poster from an executive retreat—they are more likely to see themselves as part of the future organization. When this happens, people are more likely to show the tenacity needed during the challenging times that inevitably accompany change.

Getting people involved in the visioning process is also a key way to help them resolve the personal concerns they experience during a change. The more you can get people involved in the visioning process, the more likely it is they will want to be part of the future organization. They need to be able to see themselves in the picture of the future for it to inspire them.

In our earlier child support example, the change leadership team was responsible for drafting the initial vision. Because there was no existing vision for the state’s Child Support Program to compare it to, they needed to create a vision for the entire program, not just for the implementation of an electronic tracking system. Next they took the draft vision to the county clerks across the state and asked them for input. The result was the creation of a shared vision that was compelling for the vast majority of those being asked to change:

Our state’s Child Support Program helps children thrive by providing financial stability to their families and offering the highest-quality service as a nationally recognized model of excellence for child support enforcement.

While a small group of leaders could have come up with these words, giving county clerks an opportunity to provide input ensured that the vision was understood and embraced.

Strategy 5: Experiment to Ensure Alignment

Outcome: Collaborative Effort and Infrastructure

The fifth change leadership strategy, Experiment to Ensure Alignment, is for personal and implementation concerns.

When leaders engage others in planning and experimenting, they encourage collaborative effort and help build the infrastructure that is needed to support the change. The Experiment to Ensure Alignment strategy addresses the following reasons why change efforts fail.

Why Change Efforts Typically Fail: Reasons 7, 8, and 9

7. The change is not piloted, so the organization does not learn what is needed to support the change.

8. Organizational systems and other initiatives are not aligned with the change.

9. Leaders lose focus or fail to prioritize, causing “death by 1,000 initiatives.”

Involve others in planning and pilots. We’ve all seen or been part of changes that have not gone well. In most of these cases, the implementation plan was not developed by people anywhere near the front line. As a result, the plan did not account for some real-world realities and was shrugged off as flawed, unrealistic, and lacking the details required for action—or, worse yet, flat-out wrong.

As with the earlier change leadership strategies we described, when you involve people and give them a chance to influence, you get not only their buy-in, but also a better outcome. Also, your planning process needs to account for the fact that you won’t have it all figured out ahead of time. Run some experiments or pilots with early adopters in an effort to work out the kinks and learn more about the best way to implement the change with the larger organization. Ensure that your change implementation plan is dynamic.

By getting others involved in the planning process, you can resolve a number of personal and implementation concerns. Test drives, pilots, or experiments can also teach you what else needs to change in terms of policies, procedures, systems, and structures so that the probability of successful implementation across the larger organization improves. The positive outcomes of engaging others at this stage of the change process are collaborative effort and the right infrastructure.

Many change plans underestimate the momentum generated by short-term wins. Short-term wins are improvements that can be implemented within a short time frame—typically three months—with minimal resources, at minimal cost, and at minimal risk. Short-term wins have several benefits. First, they proactively address impact concerns (such as “Is the change working?”). Second, they provide good news early in the change effort, when good news is hard to come by. Third, they reinforce behavior changes made by early adopters. Fourth, they help sway those who are “on the fence” toward action.

In the child support case study pilot described earlier, it was critical to select counties that had the greatest probability of seeing significant short-term results from implementing the new electronic tracking system. This would help grease the skids and build momentum for post-pilot implementations with other counties where the impact was more in question.

Avoid death by 1,000 initiatives. With limited resources, it is critical to make choices about what change initiatives will allow your organization to achieve its vision most effectively and efficiently. Individual change initiatives need to be scheduled and implemented in light of other activities and initiatives competing for people’s time, energy, and mind share.

During times of change, it is critical to provide your people with direction on priorities. Like a sponge, after a certain amount of change, people cannot absorb any more, no matter how resilient and adaptive they are.

Decide what not to do. While it is important to provide direction on what to do, it is just as important to provide direction on what not to do. Ask the following questions when deciding what to do and what not to do: What project or initiative will have the greatest impact on your vision? What provides the greatest value for resources expended (money, people, time)? Can the people responsible for working on the project handle it in light of all the other things they have been assigned to do? Are there enough qualified people who can dedicate time to work on the project? Are there any synergies between this project and other critical projects?

Once you have prioritized and sequenced a list of possible change projects, recognize that, because we live in a dynamic environment, priorities can shift and resources can become more abundant or scarce. This may shift the type and number of projects an organization undertakes at any point in time as well.

Decide how and when to measure and assess progress. The adage is true: What gets measured gets done. Because it is difficult to predict human behavior with absolute certainty—especially in the face of major change—assess the progress being made on a number of fronts in an effort to identify potential risks to the change’s success. These areas include sponsor commitment, employee commitment and behavior change, achieving project milestones, and interim business results.

The plan crafted at this step of the change process needs to describe what will be measured, how it will be measured, and the frequency of measurement. To increase the probability of successful change, consider using an organizational change readiness assessment to determine what’s working well and what requires additional work.

Communication, communication, communication. Much has been written about the importance of communication during times of change. Why is it so important? A significant amount of resistance encountered during organizational change is caused by a lack of information, especially the what and why types of information. In the absence of honest, passionate, and empathetic communication, people create their own information about the change, and rumors begin to serve as facts.

For example, we worked with an organization going through a tremendous amount of change. As we started our work, we quickly realized that little or no rationale was being provided for key decisions that affected a large number of people. Without supporting rationale, the facts appeared harsh to team members:

• The development project I am working on was stopped.

• My budget was cut.

Based on these facts alone, many people assumed that the company’s future was bleak. As a result, tremendous effort was required to overcome the rumor mill that led to drops in productivity and morale and that caused some people to begin looking for other jobs.

Let’s consider these same facts, only this time with supporting rationale. Can you see how providing this rationale could have prevented the rumors and resistance that occurred?

• The project I am working on was stopped because we found that customer safety was at risk. Customer safety is our highest-priority value, so we made a decision in line with our values.

• My budget was cut because the organization is reallocating these funds toward another drug development project based on a recent licensing agreement we signed.

Some of the strongest resistance to change occurs when reality differs from expectations. Therefore, understanding the current expectations of those affected by the change is critical if leaders are to manage and shape or transform those expectations effectively.

Recognize that covert resistance kills change. Effective leaders not only tolerate the open expression of concerns, they actually reward their people for sharing their concerns in an open, honest, and constructive manner. It is critical that leaders provide opportunities for two-way communication, because concerns cannot be surfaced and resolved without give-and-take dialogue.

It is also important to recognize that communicating your message once is not enough for most people to act on it. People in organizations are so bombarded with information that one of the best ways to sort out what requires action versus what does not is to listen for the messages that are communicated repetitively over time. These can be distinguished from the flavor-of-the-month messages that come and go. Communicate your key messages at least seven times in seven different ways. Better yet, at least ten times in ten different ways.

Strategy 6: Enable and Encourage

Outcome: New Skills and Commitment

The sixth change leadership strategy, Enable and Encourage, is for implementation and impact concerns. When leaders enable and encourage people throughout the organization to embrace the change, associates can develop new skills and make a deeper commitment to the organization. This change leadership strategy addresses the following reason why change efforts fail.

Why Change Efforts Typically Fail: Reason 10

10. People are not enabled or encouraged to build new skills.

Our experience has shown that most organizations jump into this change leadership strategy much too soon. In many cases, executives announce the change and try to get people into training as soon as possible. Unfortunately, people’s information and personal concerns have not been addressed, so the results of the training are less than optimal. Also, training often is delivered before all the kinks are worked out, contingencies are planned for, help desks are created, or systems are aligned. Finally, early training usually fails because it’s “one size fits all.” After the learnings from pilots and experiments are culled and the right infrastructure is in place, training for the change should be done in as individualized a way as possible. Ideally, a training strategy for each individual should be delivered at just the right time.

Notice how many other change leadership strategies precede the Enable and Encourage change leadership strategy in our model. Our model is front-loaded for a reason—namely, because most organizations don’t do a good job on the early work that needs to be done to set up a successful change. The rallying cry we often hear in our work with organizations going through change is, “We’re raising the bar!” This rallying cry is not bad in and of itself. However, nothing kills motivation faster than telling people to raise their performance but failing to provide them with new skills, tools, and resources required to leap over the height of the recently raised bar. As a result, people’s reaction to leadership’s statement that “We’re raising the bar!” is often along the lines of “What does that mean? I’m not doing a good job now?”

After the roles, responsibilities, and competencies required for lasting change are determined, skill gaps need to be closed. As Stiuational Leadership® II would suggest, leaders need to use a directing style 1 (with high direction and low support) or, more likely, a coaching style 2 (with high direction and high support) to build people’s competence and commitment. Leaders need to use mistakes as opportunities for further learning, and they need to praise progress.

In the child support case study we described earlier, a group of county clerks involved in the pilots were chosen to train other county clerks on the new electronic tracking system and new work processes. This brought county clerk trainees face to face with others in similar positions who had gone down the path before them. Because the trainers were speaking from a position of experience, they were credible and could set realistic expectations for what other county clerks could expect when their county “went live.”

In addition, the county clerks facilitating the training used the sessions as opportunities to gather additional input and ensure that the implementation plan was as strong as it could be.

Strategy 7: Execute and Endorse

Outcome: Accountability and Early Results

The seventh change leadership strategy, Execute and Endorse, is for impact and collaboration concerns. James Champy articulates this strategy well:

When leaders execute and endorse the change, they create conditions for accountability and early results. This change leadership strategy addresses the following reasons why change efforts fail.

Why Change Efforts Typically Fail: Reasons 11, 12, and 13

11. Those leading the change are not credible. They undercommunicate, give mixed messages, and do not model the behaviors the change requires.

12. Progress is not measured, and/or no one recognizes the changes that people have worked hard to make.

13. People are not held accountable for implementing the change.

Much has been written about the importance of execution. We do not argue with the emphasis being placed on execution. That being said, execution is much easier if you lead the change using the strategies we’ve described up to this point. If you don’t, you will fight an uphill battle.

Walking the talk. Although it is critical for the change leadership team to communicate with one voice, it is even more important that the change leaders walk their talk and model the behaviors they expect of others.

It is estimated that a leader’s actions are at least three times as important as what he or she says. Leaders need to display as much or more commitment to the change as the people they lead. People will assess what the leader does and doesn’t do to assess the commitment to the change. The minute that associates or colleagues sense that their leader is not committed or is acting inconsistently with the desired behaviors of the change, they will no longer commit themselves to the effort.

Measure, praise progress, and redirect when necessary. As stated earlier, what gets measured gets done. Keep in mind that people’s thoughts and actions are leading indicators of business and financial performance. Leading indicators allow you to drive by “looking through the windshield” rather than by relying solely on lagging indicators such as financial performance, which is akin to driving while looking in the rearview mirror.

Once measurement occurs, praise the progress that is being made. Don’t wait for perfect performance. If you do, you’ll be waiting a long time. This concept has been key to our teachings for decades:

Because you’ve planned for short-term wins, you should be able to find and share success stories as a means of influencing people who remain on the fence. Follow through on your promise to recognize and reward the behavior you expect, and follow through on your promise to impose consequences for anyone attempting to derail the change program. This is the stage where you get rid of the people who are still resisting.

In our child support case study, the state government called monthly meetings for county clerks across the state with similar “go live” dates. During these meetings, each county was asked to share a success story as well as any challenges they were having. The idea of holding each county accountable for sharing a success story in front of their peers created some healthy competition to make the new tracking system work. It allowed early-adopting counties to sway those that were on the fence. Discussing the challenges also provided opportunities for learning that could be fed back into the design of the tracking system, the planning process, and the training of county clerks.

In another example, a change leadership team we worked with instituted the use of a “performance dashboard” to continually measure progress against a set of key performance indicators. The change leadership team met twice a month to discuss the plan’s progress, as seen by green, yellow, and red indicators on the performance dashboard. If a key performance indicator was green, this was praised and celebrated. If a key performance indicator was yellow or red, the team would discuss how best to respond to get that indicator back on track. This process held people accountable for performance and also ensured that people got the direction and support they needed to get back on track.

Strategy 8: Embed and Extend

Outcome: Reach and Sustainable Results

The eighth change leadership strategy, Embed and Extend, is for collaboration and refinement concerns. Here’s a good rule of thumb:

When leaders embed and extend the desired change, they can reach and sustain the desired results. This change leadership strategy addresses the following reason why change efforts fail.

Why Change Efforts Typically Fail: Reason 14

14. People leading the change fail to respect the power of the culture to kill the change.

Culture can be defined as the predominating attitudes, beliefs, and behavior patterns that characterize an organization’s functioning. While a high performing change leadership team can generate enthusiasm and short-term success during times of change, it is critical that the change be embedded in the organization’s culture if it is to be sustainable over the long haul.

If a change is introduced that is not aligned with the current culture, you must alter the existing culture to support the new initiative or accept that the change may not be sustainable in the long term. The best way to alter the culture is to go back to the organization’s vision and examine its values. Identify which values support the new culture and which don’t. Choose the most critical values. Then define the behaviors that are consistent with the values, and create rewards and accountability for behaving consistently with the values. It is energizing for an organization to do this in the context of implementing change.

In many cases, a change is implemented within one business unit before other business units are engaged. The change process defined by the Leading People Through Change Model needs to be repeated for the new units that have not yet gone through the process.

Citing our child support case study again, it was critical to ensure that all obstacles to using the new tracking system were removed. While there were some common obstacles to overcome for most counties, many obstacles differed by county. As a result, embedding the change on a local level required attention at the local level. Because ongoing support was provided, obstacles were removed, and the counties themselves sold each other on the benefits of implementing the new tracking system. Doing so allowed the initiative to be extended across an entire state and eventually the entire country.

Strategy 9: Explore Possibilities

Outcome: Options

The ninth change leadership strategy, Explore Possibilities, is for refinement concerns. By involving others in exploring possibilities, you immediately lower information concerns as a new change is announced, because people are “in the loop” about deciding what needs to change. This change leadership strategy addresses the following reason why change efforts fail.

Why Change Efforts Typically Fail: Reason 15

15. Possibilities and options are not explored before a specific change is chosen.

Ideally, those who are closest to the problems and opportunities in an organization are the ones who come up with the options to be considered by the change leadership team. To ensure face validity and inclusion of the best options, the options identified should be reviewed by a representative sample of those being asked to change.

In our child support case study, noncustodial parents and county clerks across the country expressed frustration with the fact that non-support-paying parents were getting harder to track and more elusive than ever. As a result, the federal government took this input, explored the root causes of the problem, and identified a number of possible responses. A number of change projects were chosen as part of an integrated strategy to enforce the collection of child support payments. These projects included but were not limited to withholding income from the noncustodial parent’s employer and intercepting income tax refunds (state and federal), unemployment compensation benefits, and lottery winnings. The projects also included credit bureau reporting, driver’s and professional license suspension, financial institution data match (locating bank assets), cross-matching new-hire reporting, hunting and fishing license suspension, passport denial, liens, federal loan data matching, and computer automation of child support operations, including interfaces with numerous other state agency systems.

Some of these options were potentially more feasible and would have more impact than others. By simply having options, people felt they had choices and could influence what changed.

Since 1995, annual child support collections in the state where the enforcement tracking system was implemented have increased from $177 million to more than $460 million. Increased collections means that more children are receiving the child support they deserve, and fewer families will have to resort to public assistance to survive.2

It is our hope that instructing change leadership teams how to address each stage of concern during organizational change has taken much of the mystique out of the process and shown you how you can lead at a higher level. Responding to others’ concerns and paying attention to how you increase involvement and influence at each step in the change process is the best way we know to build future change receptivity, capability, and leadership.

To get sustainable results over the long term from a change effort, it is critical that the change be embedded in the organization’s culture. It’s worth repeating that if a change is introduced that is not aligned with the current culture, you must alter the existing culture to support the new initiative or accept that the change may not be sustainable. Given the importance of culture, in the next chapter we will help you understand how to build or transform an organizational culture.

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