OCM has been around for a while - thankfully! There are many, many classes, certifications, boot camps that can teach you about change tools, methodologies, how to's and the like. But there is little on the subject of Change Leadership - what it is or what it looks like. Let me take a swing.
When we get "hired" to do our OCM magic - we are assigned to a specific initiative or project. We have laser focus. And we do our best to do good change management on our project (I think you would agree that there's good change management and there's bad change management. Good change management is far better than bad change management!) If you haven't discovered this yet, your project is likely one of many, many things going on in the organization (Change Saturation).
Smart change managers will look around and ask - "what else is going on around here that is impacting my stakeholders?" "What other 'noise' is disrupting my peeps?" This is where Change Leadership starts to take hold... Change Leadership takes into consideration all the layers of change that touch us and then develops an overarching approach on how to deal with it. Do we shift our focus? Are there dependencies between initiatives? Are there competing objectives? Do we re-prioritize? Does one change close the door for the other? Are we reinforcing wrong behaviors? It becomes part of the culture to ask questions like this.
Although, bringing this stuff up to your Leaders and Sponsors can sometimes be unpopular. Exercising this peripheral vision is counter to laser focus right? "Looking around" can distract us from getting the job done on the project. When Change Leadership "happens," the organization should have visibility to the entire portfolio of changes that are impacting it's people and then architects approaches that optimize performance across the culture.
I don' think we have a handle on how to do this very well yet, let alone teach it. Something good to work on in the New Year! More to come.
Wishing you all a Happy New Year!
When we get "hired" to do our OCM magic - we are assigned to a specific initiative or project. We have laser focus. And we do our best to do good change management on our project (I think you would agree that there's good change management and there's bad change management. Good change management is far better than bad change management!) If you haven't discovered this yet, your project is likely one of many, many things going on in the organization (Change Saturation).
Smart change managers will look around and ask - "what else is going on around here that is impacting my stakeholders?" "What other 'noise' is disrupting my peeps?" This is where Change Leadership starts to take hold... Change Leadership takes into consideration all the layers of change that touch us and then develops an overarching approach on how to deal with it. Do we shift our focus? Are there dependencies between initiatives? Are there competing objectives? Do we re-prioritize? Does one change close the door for the other? Are we reinforcing wrong behaviors? It becomes part of the culture to ask questions like this.
Although, bringing this stuff up to your Leaders and Sponsors can sometimes be unpopular. Exercising this peripheral vision is counter to laser focus right? "Looking around" can distract us from getting the job done on the project. When Change Leadership "happens," the organization should have visibility to the entire portfolio of changes that are impacting it's people and then architects approaches that optimize performance across the culture.
I don' think we have a handle on how to do this very well yet, let alone teach it. Something good to work on in the New Year! More to come.
Wishing you all a Happy New Year!
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