Change management is a challenge in any organization, but the digital age has added a layer of complexity to the process. In order to effectively lead change initiatives, there are certain tips that can be useful. Here are ten tips to help you be an effective change leader in the digital age.
1. Stay up to date: Technology and digital systems are constantly changing and evolving, so it is important to stay up to date on the latest trends and developments. Be sure to attend conferences and seminars, read industry news, and talk to other change leaders to stay on top of the latest developments.
2. Understand the technology: Before you can lead change, you need to understand the technology and digital systems you are working with. Take the time to learn the system and how it works so you can effectively lead the change initiative.
3. Listen to feedback: Change can be difficult, so it is important to listen to feedback from employees and stakeholders. Take the time to understand the different perspectives and use this feedback to inform your change leadership strategy.
4. Engage stakeholders: Change initiatives can be successful if stakeholders are engaged throughout the process. Make sure to include stakeholders in the planning process and involve them in decision-making.
5. Set clear goals: Change initiatives can get off track if there are no clear goals or objectives. Be sure to set clear goals and objectives for the change initiative so everyone understands what needs to be accomplished.
6. Communicate regularly: Change can be daunting for employees, so it is important to keep them informed throughout the process. Make sure to communicate regularly with employees and stakeholders about the progress of the change initiative.
7. Use data: Data can be a powerful tool in the digital age. Use data to track progress and make decisions about the change initiative.
8. Embrace innovation: Change can be a great opportunity to try new things and innovate. Encourage employees to think outside the box and come up with creative solutions to tackle the challenge.
9. Celebrate success: Change can be a long and difficult process, so it is important to celebrate successes along the way. Make sure to take the time to recognize the hard work of employees and stakeholders who have helped lead the change initiative.
10. Learn from failure: Even the best change initiatives can fail. If a change initiative falls short, use it as a learning opportunity. Gather feedback and learn from mistakes to improve your change leadership strategy.
By following these ten tips, you can be an effective change leader in the digital age. Change initiatives can be complex and difficult, but with the right approach and strategy, you can be successful.
Image credit: Pixabay
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Change does not fail at the strategy level as often as leaders think. It fails at the human level. Organizations announce transformation, deploy tools, and track milestones, only to discover that people quietly revert to old behaviors. Adoption, not execution, is the real bottleneck.
As a human-centered change and innovation practitioner, I see resistance as a signal, not a setback. The journey from reluctance to readiness is the leader’s most important responsibility.
Re-framing Resistance
Resistance is frequently misdiagnosed as unwillingness. More often, it reflects uncertainty about competence, consequences, or credibility. People ask themselves whether they can succeed, whether the change will last, and whether leadership can be trusted.
Leaders who re-frame resistance as feedback gain clarity about what readiness requires.
Readiness Is Built, Not Announced
Readiness emerges when people understand the change, believe it matters, and feel capable of acting differently. This requires time, practice, and reinforcement.
Human-centered leaders design change as a learning journey rather than a rollout.
Case Study One: Microsoft and the Power of Modeling
Microsoft’s cultural shift under a growth mindset philosophy succeeded because leaders modeled the behavior they expected. Curiosity replaced certainty, and learning replaced defensiveness.
This visible shift reduced fear and normalized experimentation, accelerating adoption across the organization.
Psychological Safety as an Adoption Accelerator
People adopt change faster when they feel safe admitting what they do not know. Psychological safety turns learning into a shared endeavor rather than an individual risk.
Leaders create safety through transparency, patience, and consistent reinforcement.
Case Study Two: Clinician-Led Change in Healthcare
A hospital system struggling with digital adoption shifted its approach by empowering respected clinicians as change champions. Peer-led learning replaced top-down mandates.
Adoption improved because trust already existed within peer networks.
The Change Adoption Canvas
The Change Adoption Canvas is a practical, human-centered tool designed to help leaders move beyond announcing change and toward achieving sustained behavior adoption. Rather than focusing on project plans or communications alone, the canvas prompts teams to examine change through the lived experience of the people who must actually behave differently.
By working through the six sections, leaders clarify why the change matters, identify who is most impacted, and surface the beliefs, habits, and constraints that shape current behavior. The canvas is best used collaboratively in workshops or leadership sessions, where diverse perspectives can reveal hidden readiness barriers and misaligned signals. Once those barriers are visible, the canvas guides leaders to intentionally design enablement, support, and reinforcement mechanisms that build confidence and trust over time. Used iteratively, the Change Adoption Canvas becomes both a diagnostic and a design tool, helping organizations course-correct, strengthen adoption, and embed change as a repeatable capability rather than a one-time effort.
Signals Over Statements
People believe what leaders do more than what they say. Promotions, budgets, and recognition send powerful signals about what truly matters.
Aligning these signals with desired behaviors is essential to sustaining change.
“Leaders do not create readiness by demanding change; they create it by making people feel capable, supported, and safe enough to begin.”
Conclusion
The journey from reluctant to ready is not linear, and it cannot be rushed. It requires empathy, patience, and intentional design.
Leaders who invest in readiness do more than implement change. They build organizations capable of continuous adaptation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do well-communicated changes still fail?
Because understanding does not automatically create confidence or capability.
How can leaders measure change adoption?
By observing sustained behavior change and real-world usage, not just task completion.
What role does leadership behavior play in adoption?
Leadership behavior sets the tone and determines whether people feel safe embracing change.
Extra Extra: Because innovation is all about change, Braden Kelley’s human-centered change methodology and tools are the best way to plan and execute the changes necessary to support your innovation and transformation efforts — all while literally getting everyone all on the same page for change. Find out more about the methodology and tools, including the book Charting Change by following the link. Be sure and download the TEN FREE TOOLS while you’re here.
Image credits: Pixabay, Google Gemini
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Change is an inevitability in life and in business. It is essential to the success of any organization and its people, but often it is met with resistance and fear. To bring about lasting transformation, organizations must be able to move beyond the traditional methods of change management and embrace the power of change leadership through storytelling.
Storytelling is a powerful tool for change leadership. It is a way to engage with people on an emotional level and to help them understand the importance of making a change. When organizations use storytelling to convey the message of change, it can help to make it more palatable and easier to accept.
Storytelling can be used to illustrate the positive impact of change and to encourage people to believe in it. People can be inspired by stories that show how change has made a difference in the lives of others. It can also be used to show how organizations are adapting to new situations and how the changes will benefit the organization and its people.
Storytelling can also be used to help people make sense of their own experiences with change. People can learn how to cope with their own fears and doubts and how to manage their reactions to the changes. When people understand the stories behind the changes, they can more easily accept them.
Stories can also be used to demonstrate the power of collective leadership. People can be inspired by stories of how a group of people worked together to create change and how they overcame any obstacles they faced. This can be used to show the importance of collaboration and how it can be used to bring about lasting results.
Finally, storytelling can be used to help people develop the skills necessary for effective change leadership. People can learn how to lead without fear, how to engage with others in meaningful dialogue, and how to build trust and respect in the workplace. These skills are essential for successful change leadership and can be taught through stories.
Storytelling is an invaluable tool for change leadership. It can help to make change more palatable, to inspire people to accept it, and to develop the skills necessary for effective change leadership. By using storytelling, organizations can unlock the power of change leadership and make sure that their people are ready to embrace the changes they must make.
Image credit: Pexels
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Change is inevitable, and successful change leadership is the key to ensuring that change is successful. Change leadership involves effectively managing the transition process that accompanies any change to ensure that the desired results are achieved. With the right leadership skills, you can make sure that the change you want to implement is successful.
Here are some secrets to effective change leadership:
1. Understand the process: To be an effective change leader, you need to understand the change process. A good change leader knows what needs to happen at each stage of the process and how to effectively move from one stage to the next.
2. Create a vision: It is essential to have a clear vision of what you want to achieve with the change. This vision should be communicated to everyone involved in the change process. It should include the desired outcomes, the timeline for implementation, and any resources required.
3. Communicate: Communication is essential for successful change. You need to communicate with everyone involved, from the stakeholders to the team members. Make sure that everyone understands the change and their role in it.
4. Manage resistance: Change can be difficult, and it’s important to be prepared for resistance. Don’t be afraid to confront resistance head-on. Address concerns and objections and use techniques such as negotiation and compromise to manage resistance.
5. Stay focused: As a change leader, it is essential to stay focused on the goal. Don’t get sidetracked by details or become overly analytical. Keep your focus on the vision and the desired outcomes.
6. Empower your team: It is important to empower your team to take ownership of the change process. Allow them to be creative and come up with solutions. Support them and provide them with the resources they need to be successful.
7. Monitor progress: As the change leader, it is important to monitor progress throughout the process. Make sure that the objectives are being achieved and that any issues are addressed quickly.
By following these secrets of change leadership, you can ensure that the change you want to implement is successful. With the right leadership skills and a positive attitude, you can make sure that the desired outcomes are achieved. It is the leader’s job to guide their team through changes, both big and small. However, fostering a culture of change leadership in an organization can be a challenge.
Here are a few tips on how to encourage and develop change leadership in your organization:
1. Establish Clear Goals
The first step in fostering a culture of change leadership is to ensure that your organization has clear goals and objectives. Leaders need to be able to communicate the vision of the organization and what it is trying to achieve. This gives team members direction and helps them understand the importance of change.
2. Encourage Open Dialogue
Leaders should create an open and honest dialogue with their team. This includes allowing team members to voice their ideas and opinions. It is important to create a safe space for team members to be able to express themselves without fear of judgement. This will help encourage creative thinking and allow for more innovative solutions to the organization’s challenges.
3. Lead by Example
It is important for leaders to lead by example when it comes to embracing change. Leaders should be willing to take risks and try out new ideas. This will show team members that it is okay to think outside the box and that failure is part of the process.
4. Provide Training and Development
Leaders should focus on providing training and development opportunities for their team. This can include workshops, seminars, and webinars, as well as one-on-one coaching. This will help team members to develop the skills needed to embrace change and become better change leaders.
5. Embrace Failure
Finally, it is important to remember that failure is part of the process. Leaders should not be afraid to fail and should instead use it as a learning opportunity. This will help create a culture where team members are not afraid to take risks and try new things.
Fostering a culture of change leadership in an organization is not easy, but it is an essential part of ensuring success. By following the tips above, you can help create an environment that encourages team members to be creative and embrace change.
Image credit: Pixabay
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The business world is showing an increasing interest in the people side of change, and there is a very real reason for this…
Companies are spending an increasing amount of their budget on technology and working to transform their operations to be more digital in order to provide a better experience for customers, employees, partners and suppliers while simultaneously creating a more efficient and effective business.
Everyone knows that a lot of technology projects fail to achieve their intended objectives, timings, and budgets. This fact and the increasing investment levels are causing more executives to look for ways to de-risk these technology investments in digitizing the business.
That’s why we’re seeing an uptick in the hiring and certification of change management professionals, which is great, but companies are still thinking about the relationship between project management and change management backwards.
In most cases change management is brought to bear as an afterthought, a bolt on to project management when the reverse should be true. Managing a change is a bigger endeavor than managing a project, and in fact you could say that because every project changes something, that every project is a change initiative.
It is thinking about managing projects in this way that I sat down to begin managing a new project several years ago and like many project managers, I found myself sitting at my computer by myself starting at an empty Microsoft Word template for a project charter knowing the uphill battle I’m going to face trying to route this document around via email and succeeding at both getting any responses at all and at getting meaningful input and a diversity of perspectives to make my project charter a really strong document that anyone will actually look at after week two of the project. I also found myself thinking that there has to be a better to plan and execute change initiatives and projects.
And sure people like pull ADKAR (a modified version of AIDA from the marketing world) and the ACMP Standard for Change Management (see the visualization I created above and download it for free here) and John Kotter’s change leadership approach, but they all fall short of making the planning and execution of change initiatives and projects a more visual and collaborative process, so I found myself starting to create new tools to help people (intended to link up with the PMBOK and ACMP Standard for Change Management).
These tools started to collect until they formed a comprehensive and new visual, collaborative approach to planning and executing change initiatives, and yes projects. This collection of tools became known as the Change Planning Toolkit™ and was first introduced in my latest book Charting Change which pairs nicely with my first book Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire. Both are designed to pack more insights into each chapter than most books contain in the entirety of their pages. Two of the most important frameworks introduced in the book are the Five Keys to Successful Change:
And the Architecting the Organization for Change framework:
Both frameworks are designed to help people challenge the way they think about organizational change. They are designed to help people think about more than change management and to think differently about how organizations are transformed and how change management and project management relate to each other.
To help people begin their participation in changing change I’ve made ten free tools available for download from the 50+ tools in the Change Planning Toolkit™, and people who buy a copy of Charting Change get access to 26 of the 50+ tools (including the Visual Project Charter™ and the Change Planning Canvas™). The book does a great job of helping to explain the philosophy behind the toolkit and how to get started with the tools, but people who purchase access to all 50+ tools (including tools to help people think through their Digital Transformation) also get a QuickStart Guide to explain each tool.
But if we are going to truly work together to change how change is planned and executed I thought it would make sense to give people a more in depth sneak preview into what’s inside the toolkit and so I’ve created the following Introduction to the Change Planning Toolkit™ webinar recording:
I encourage you to reflect upon your own experiences planning and executing both projects and change initiatives and what you’ve found lacking in the tools you call upon from ProSci, PMI, ACMP or others and then check out the book and the webinar and then let me know if there are any tools that you feel are still missing – and if it makes sense, I’ll create them!
My goal in creating all of these tools for you after all is to help you beat the 70% change failure rate, so let’s work together at changing change so our organizations are capable with more capably transforming themselves as the environment changes around them.
You can let me know if there are any change tools that you still need (or if you’d like me to come show you and your team personally how to use them) via the contact form.
Let’s change change together!
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When it comes to business, many people would say it is outcomes that truly matter, especially investors on wall street. Investors don’t care what kind of software you’re running or what your stack looks like, or how you do what you do, as long as you deliver the financial outcomes they are looking for in order to earn a return on their investment.
Doctors also focus on outcomes and insurance companies are becoming obsessed with them, forcing doctors and customers into Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). In healthcare, the outcomes obsession is called Outcomes-Based Management or Outcomes-Based Healthcare. In education, the outcomes obsession has led to an obsession with standardized testing and a practice called Outcomes-Based Education (OBE).
And in the innovation space, Tony Ulwick and Strategyn created Outcomes-Driven Innovation (ODI). In the innovation space this approach can be very beneficial as it helps companies move away from asking questions like “What can this technology do?” to questions that create better outcomes and more value, questions like “What is the customer trying to do?” or “What is the job to be done (JTBD)?”
Whether it is healthcare, education, business, or innovation, a focus on outcomes can be very helpful, but in these contexts we are looking at managing to a certain set of outcomes, or improving a certain set of outcomes, at a fixed point in time.
In the area of organizational change however, the focus often is not on outcomes, but on behaviors. Far too much of the literature and practice focuses on behavior change, which could also be described as “what people do.” And this focus on behaviors instead of aligning thoughts, feelings, behaviors and outcomes is part of why up to 70% of change efforts fail.
Too many people are jumping in head first and not approaching organizational change holistically, having the tough conversations around not only around how behaviors (doing) need to change but also how the how the outcomes need to change, along with how people’s thoughts and feelings need to change.
And when it comes to organizational change, we are not trying to achieve a certain set of outcomes or optimize a certain set of outcomes, but instead to ascertain what the relevant outcomes are in the current state and what we want them to become in the future state.
To help change leaders work though these incredibly necessary conversations and to help change managers achieve alignment within the organization around how all four components need to change (outcomes, thinking, feeling, doing) as part of a planned and coordinated effort, I have created the Outcome-Driven Change (ODC) Framework and worksheet to add to the Change Planning Toolkit™ v7 for existing subscribers and new subscribers alike.
Thinking, feeling, doing…
People have been linking these terms together since at least 1895 when E.W. Scripture released an interesting book titled Thinking, Feeling, Doing on how scientists conduct research affecting these three parts of our humanity. Many people have added to the conversation since then speaking about how we are of three minds (Merriam-Webster dictionary definitions below), which are the:
1. Cognitive
Of, relating to, being, or involving conscious intellectual activity (such as thinking, reasoning, or remembering)
2. Affective
Relating to, arising from, or influencing feelings or emotions
3. Conative
An inclination (such as an instinct, a drive, a wish, or a craving) to act purposefully
Not coincidentally, these match up with the three domains of learning, defined as early as 1956 by educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom.
Others like to ascribe these three elements of humanity into Mind, Body, and Soul.
The key thing to remember from all of this discussion is that we are speaking about three very distinct things:
Thinking
Feeling
Doing
IT IS possible, and happens with surprising frequency, that all three are not in agreement when you are dealing with human beings. Which the obvious truth of course is that in any change effort, or project for that matter, you are. People are fully capable of thinking one thing, feeling another, and end up doing something totally incongruent with either OR both whatever they are thinking and feeling. Confused yet?
Author F. Scott Fitzgerald once famously said:
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”
This is one reason why change of any kind, organizational or personal, is so hard. Because, in order to be successful you must achieve alignment between all three elements of human reaction to the change in order to achieve the outcomes you seek.
Hopefully I’ve captured all of this in this single image of the Outcome-Driven Change Framework and this single quote from it:
“When what people do aligns with what they think and feel, then and only then, will you achieve the outcomes you’re looking for.”
In the Change Planning Toolkit™ v7 paying subscribers will find 11″x17″versions of this framework and the Outcome-Driven Change™ Worksheet to help your change planning team guide the conversations with change leaders that will help you surface the outcomes you’re currently achieving and what people in the organization are thinking, feeling, and doing to create the current outcomes and what members of the organization will need to think, feel, and do in order to achieve the new set of outcomes that you determine are necessary for the change to be successful.
This is just a taste of the kinds of frameworks, worksheets, and other tools you will find in the Change Planning Toolkit™ that I introduced in my latest book Charting Change along with a lot of great case studies and other next practices shared by some of the leading minds in the areas of organizational change and innovation.
So what are you waiting for?
Get started using the Outcome-Driven Change Framework to spark dialogue among your change planning and leadership teams
Download the 10 free tools from the Change Planning Toolkit™
Grab your copy of Charting Change and get access to even more tools for free from the Change Planning Toolkit™ (including the Change Planning Canvas™)
And then when you’re ready, get a license to all the rest of the 50+ frameworks, worksheets and other tools, and beat the 70% change failure rate!
Still have questions about how the Change Planning Toolkit™ can help your organization get better at change?
Want to achieve faster and more effective change on a grand scale?
I am super excited to announce that you can now can get a Commercial License directly on this web site or through a certified Change Planning Toolkit™ practitioner to increase the success of the projects or change initiatives inside your company or to make money doing so for your clients. There are two simple options:
Either option is a bargain considering the prices of other tools, training and reports:
$150/year per person – Cost of Skillsoft business skills courses
$279/year per person – Cost of MarketingProfs subscription
$350-400 per download per person – ProSci downloads
$400-1,000 per hour – What top consultants charge for an hour of advice
$975/year per person – Cost of Being First change leadership tools
~$20,000/year per person – Forrester license cost
$20-30,000/year per person – Gartner license cost
So either Change Planning Toolkit™ commercial licensing option is a lower cost investment for a complete toolkit of more powerful tools for planning and executing projects, change initiatives, and digital transformations, than any of the above alternatives.
For large companies like IBM, Accenture, Amazon, GE, Wells Fargo, Cognizant, HP Enterprise, Convergys, Oracle, or Microsoft, a free* site license represents a savings of up to $830,000 on tools with a value of nearly $500 million for a nominal investment in one day of training.
To maximize the availability and benefits, a commercial site license is designed to provide access to ALL of your employees, or you can purchase a regular commercial license for one or more named users.
* The site license is free for the first year. After 365 days it can be renewed for a very affordable $2/employee per year. Each employee gets access to tools that other companies might charge up to $20,000 for a single user to access.
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Recently my colleague Daniel Lock collected and published points-of-view (POV) from 13 change management experts on implementing fast, dramatic and powerful change.
Here is mine:
If your change effort or project begins in a Microsoft Word document, you’re already in a whole world of trouble. Change is a human endeavor, so the most powerful way to embark on creating a dramatic and powerful change on an aggressive timeline is to surface the key challenges and opportunities as early as possible.
That doesn’t happen with a single individual tapping away at the keys entering prose or data into a traditional project charter. Instead, I recommend taking the following three steps to accelerate your change effort or project and increase its chances of success:
1. Evaluate the Change Readiness of Your Organization
Too often we just jump in and announce the start of projects and change initiatives without even looking around to see if the resources that are going to be crucial to our success are even available.
Convene a cross-functional change planning team to identify the resources you are going to need to successfully complete the project (physical, financial, human, etc.). Then begin to draft an initial high level project schedule including when different resources will need and map that against their availability (including their commitments to other existing and potential projects and change initiatives) to create a change readiness heat map.
One of the biggest barriers to successful change initiatives is viewing change management as a subset of project management when we should really all be instead viewing project management as a subset of change management, and but one of Five Keys to Successful Change.
Consciously approaching the design of our organization and how it operates from the outside as changes in the environment dictate changes inside our organization can benefit from using a tool like the Architecting the Organization for Change framework.
3. Develop a Holistic View of the Change You’re Trying to Make
Change planning should never be a solo activity. You must identify those individuals who can verbalize the current and desired states, the risks and resources, identify the potential barriers and benefits, craft effective communications, etc.
You need to also involve people who know how to leverage a human-centered approach to affecting change using The Eleven Change Roles and who can build and maintain momentum by understanding and harness The Eight Change Mindsets that cause people to choose change.
I truly believe that only by taking a more visual, collaborative approach to change and capturing the key information on a single page using the Change Planning Canvas™ as you build your change plan, will you ever create and sustain the alignment necessary to beat the 70% change failure rate.
Have you downloaded your ten free change planning tools?
NEWSFLASH: I’ve added sample QuickStart Guide content to the download package, so if you’ve already downloaded the 10 Free Change Planning Tools, you’ll want to download them again to get this bonus content.
Research shows that 70% of change efforts fail. There are many reasons why, including that many people find the planning of a change effort overwhelming and lack tools for making the process more visual, collaborative and human.
Following the successful launch of my latest book Charting Change and a suite of tools called the Change Planning Toolkit™, I have made several access levels available to spread the methodology and help get everyone literally on the same page for change:
I am making 10 free change planning tools from the toolkit available as 11″x17″ downloads along with JUST ADDED sample content from the QuickStart Guide,
and buyers of the Change Planning Toolkit™ Bronze License will get access to all 50+ tools for individual educational use at an 11″x17″ size — a $1,200 value.
I am very excited to share with you the Change Planning Toolkit™, including the popular Visual Project Charter™, Change Planning Canvas™ and many other great tools for increasing your change success!
Increase your consulting revenue or your organizational agility and get a jump on your competition!
Site licenses are available for professional or commercial use starting at $2/yr per employee*, and include access to poster size versions of many of the tools (35″x56″).
*Bronze Site Licenses have a one-time setup fee of $299. Site License fee based on total number of employees in the organization.
Below you’ll find a downloadable presentation that gives you five reasons to invest in the Change Planning Toolkit™:
Change can be complicated, change can be confusing, and change can be difficult to successfully implement in any organization. This is why 70% of change initiatives have been found to fail.
To help make change less overwhelming, and instead more visual and more collaborative, I set out to create the Change Planning Toolkit™ for project managers, change managers, and leaders everywhere to pick up and use with their change leadership teams to better plan and execute their organizational change initiatives, and even projects.
Change Planning Team Contributions
Creating a change planning team that can bring the information and influence to the table that you really need is one of the keys to the eventual success of your change planning sessions and the overall change effort as a whole. The information you need will obviously be driven by the topics that your team should cover as part of your change planning efforts. These include:
What is the current state?
What are the change drivers? (It is helpful to discuss history, context, and the main proponents.)
Is there a budget for both planning and executing this change?
What other change programs are in progress or about to begin?
How ready are we as an organization to make this change?
To see the rest of this list, please get yourself a copy of my book Charting Change
Who needs to be involved in change?
Nothing is more important for creating successful change in an organization than getting the right people in the room and engaged during the change planning process. And if you want to get your change effort off to a strong start and set it up for success, then I encourage you to focus more on knowledge than authority. Think about who knows the most about the key components of a holistic change plan.
Take a moment to consider which individuals in your organization will have the most knowledge and information on the intended change, and which individuals will provide the most considered viewpoints on the topics that you will focus on as you work through the series of worksheets and other tools in the Change Planning Toolkit™ on your way to creating your roadmap and series of fully populated change execution plans.
As we consider all of the data, personalities, ecosystem interactions and work items that must be considered, you’ll quickly see that change is a team sport and that there are many different roles for people to play.
With this in mind, I’ve created The Eleven Change Roles™ to identify the eleven roles that are important to the forming of a balanced and successful change leadership team, so start considering your candidates for:
1. Authority Figures/Sponsors
Somebody has to be in charge. This includes one main sponsor and a coalition of authority figures that can help push things forward when a push is required.
2. Designers
Designers are your big picture thinkers, people that can see how the pieces fit together, are skilled meeting facilitators, can quickly achieve mastery of new methodologies (like my Change Planning Toolkit™), and can help keep people on track as you build out the plans for your change effort.
3. Influencers
Influencers are well-respected and forceful people in the organization. They may lack the formal position power of a sponsor or authority figure, but they can help rally people to the cause with their words and actions.
4. Integrators
Integrators are good at bridging silos, building relationships that cut across geographies and hierarchies, and finding ways for different work teams and departments to work together to achieve a common goal.
5. Connectors
Connectors are slightly different than Integrators, and the difference is that they know where the overt and hidden resources lie in the organization, and have the personal connections and influence necessary to open a dialogue that hopefully results in both needed connections AND access to resources.
6. Resource Controllers/Investors
These people have things that you need – human resources, information resources, physical resources, and human resources. You must convince them to invest those resources in helping you successfully achieve your desired change.
7. Troubleshooters
There are always going to be hiccups and problems that emerge along the way, some expected, and some not. Troubleshooters are really good at helping to identify those up front and enjoy the challenge of finding ways around, over, or under these potential barriers when they crop up. It is even better when the team can identify ways to avoid or overcome them before broader communications begin. Troubleshooters can help with this and often have the deep domain knowledge or the deep insight into the change target’s mindset necessary to also help move minds and resources to support the change program.
8. Evangelists/Storytellers
Every change effort has a story to tell about how the desired future state is better than the current state, and is worth the disruption of making the change. There is the building of a vision, the creation of themes that will weave together into your story, and symbols that will reinforce and show your commitment to realizing the goals you set out for the change effort. Without these, evangelism and storytelling will find it hard to help people understand or support the change goals. So, you need to have evangelists and storytellers at the ready.
9. Endorsers/Supporters
Getting people to agree to talk up the change effort, even if they are not taking an active role in pushing it forward towards completion, is incredibly powerful. Don’t be afraid to reach out and ask for this seemingly insignificant assistance, but be sure and arm these individuals with the themes, symbols and stories that will reinforce the change vision and sustain the change effort’s momentum.
10. The Impacted (key groups of impacted individuals)
Who’s going to be affected by this change? Don’t be afraid to invite these people into your planning efforts early on to voice their concerns so that you can understand their otherwise unvoiced objections, identify solutions or mitigations, and potentially recruit them as impactful Evangelists or Endorsers/Supporters.
11. The External (perspectives from people not affected)
It’s easy to miss risks, assumptions, barriers, and points of potential resistance when you get too close to the effort. Inviting people from outside your organization into your planning process, or to provide feedback on your change effort, will prove enlightening through the additional perspectives they contribute.
Conclusion
When you take the time to thoughtfully recruit people into all of The Eleven Change Roles™ listed above you will have a richer set of inputs, a much livelier discussion, and a stronger set of outputs from your change planning process.
Getting the right people with the right knowledge in the room and engaged during the change planning process will get you off to a strong start and set your change effort up for success. Having people with a strong ability to verbalize meaningful, well intentioned and well informed contributions around the key components of the planning process will provide powerful content as you work through the series of worksheets and other tools contained in the Change Planning Toolkit™ and ultimately populate your Change Planning Canvas™ and your execution plans. The toolkit includes more than 50+ tools including an Eleven Change Roles Worksheet™ that you can use in your change planning meetings or off-site to make sure you have all eleven roles filled.
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Change can be complicated, change can be confusing, and change can be difficult to successfully implement in any organization. This is why 70% of change initiatives have been found to fail. 