Introduction
Change is a norm in organizations today. Big change events, which result in rapid reorganization, transfers to new positions and work force reductions, are common experiences for today’s workers. For people who work in organizations, this is not just change or restructuring; it is a fundamental transformation in the relationship between people and work. It includes where we work, how we work, for whom we work and why we work.
Change plays a crucial role and is a constant in successful organizations. Its importance increases as the number of changes, the size and scope of those changes and the speed with which they must be implemented grow at an incredible rate. Leading organization pays attention not only to what changes it needs to make, but also how it is going to achieve them.
Today’s business leaders are aware of the failure rate of changes. How does the organization avoid those failures and their resulting costs? How can it manage those changes? By building a systematic and disciplined process to address resistance into every change and developing the ability of employees to live with constant change, to be capable of living in a permanent transition state and to be able to tolerate constant ambiguity in their work life.
If the organization achieves this goal, the changes it needs to make will happen faster, with less stress on the organization and its workforce. If its competitors do not have this capability, even though they are making the same changes, the organization that makes the changes faster, easier and with less cost gains a definite competitive advantage.
All change management strategies make the point most emphatically that leadership in the organization is a critical success factor for the changes the organization needs to make. Leadership accepts that it is important, and the change agents know it is vital. The attention the learning organization pays to developing that sponsor competency is critical.
The role of leaders as sponsors of change can be specifically defined if, instead of taking an organizational perspective, one looks at the role from the viewpoint of the people impacted by the change, or the targets of the change. What is it that they need from the leadership?
Leaders need to tell their team why they must change, what they will be changing to and how that change is going to occur. Without that information, their team cannot make an informed and thoughtful choice to change. However, communication is not enough. Leaders also must recognize that it is they who own the change, and that they need to be even more passionate about accomplishing it than the change agents they assign.