Leadership Development Consulting
Developing Internal Talent
Most companies know more about managing change in their specific corporate culture than they realize. Many have tried to incorporate Just-in-Time/ Toyota Production System and Total Quality principles or to reengineer their business processes. Few have used these experiences to learn what approach works best for them. And although the technical elements are quite different, the basic elements of every new management concept are surprisingly common. These principles can be applied to implement nearly every new idea. The cultural elements have a much greater impact than the technical elements of a specific solution. Using these experiences when implementing a new program or concept can be extremely valuable, as the principles the organization applies to avoid change are very often stable. Applying these concrete experiences from recent change efforts can help avoid organizational pitfalls and common mistakes.
The Change Leadership Program builds on an organization’s past experiences, distilling the "living case studies". Identifying those projects that have been extraordinarily successful, and using the experience of project managers to transfer skills to potential change leaders, allows one to utilize the experience as a real learning tool. This way, a company can train its potential change leaders by using real life case studies from its own organization, including particular issues like politics, networks, leadership styles, and corporate culture.
This approach allows an organization to limit the risks of change without reducing the opportunities. It also establishes a mentoring relationship between those who have already led a change project and those who have not. People who have implemented change have learned this lesson the hard way. Because the participants of the program have already picked an improvement project that they will lead, the new skills can be applied immediately.
Putting participants into this new role also enforces the development of new attitudes and behaviors. Experience shows that you can only achieve sustainable change if the learning can be applied to the job. So the participants enter the program with a specific change initiative they will lead and manage. Change leadership projects that have been successful can then be used as case studies in the next round. By evaluating and preparing these projects for "living case studies," you form the basis for the next wave of projects. This mechanism helps people to realize the potential for dramatic change.
Most organizations underestimate their need for internal resources to drive large scale change efforts. Traditionally, the roll-out phase has been critical because of the expense of external resources and the reduced chances that results will last without transferring critical change skills to the client. The Change Leadership Program lowers the need for support from consultants and trainers to a minimum. Ideally, an organization should be able to cover most learning areas by themselves. External help can then be limited to preparing case studies and courses.
