It's no surprise that many company initiatives fall short of their expectations, and most companies blame it on leadership's inability to execute it. This is true, but the underlying factor can be linked to one very important skill...Change Management. While most leaders are experienced in functional specialties, like finance, sales, marketing or operations, the one speciality skill that is required to drive change and make it stick is usually lacking. Why is this?

As a change management expert, I am asked often about "how to" ensure an initiative, project or transformation is successful. I always come back to the same question to them: Do you have a change management strategy and do you have change management expertise in house? 

Almost always the answer comes back, "No, that's why we hired you." I usually laugh, because that's a great answer! My response back is also always the same, "Got it, but we need to build this skill in house, because it is a basic function that you need to run your business, just like finance." 

It starts with understanding the WHO. Who will be trained in the company in Change Management. This is not an easy, quick decision. Most companies put it all on Human Resources...wrong answer. They also think it's someone lower in the company...wrong answer again. Leadership, beginning with the CEO, need to be trained in the tools and processes to drive the right behaviors to deliver on their goals. From there, you can go to the next level of the organization, then the next level again, until each function and layer of the organization has someone trained. And if you are smart, you train several people per function per layer as a contingency plan should people leave. 

The next step is HOW. This is where NexGen comes in. If you went through our services page, you know we have a toolkit to train people, so I'm not going to get into detail of how we do it...call us in and we'll review it with you. The "How" I'd like to discuss is the process for embedding it in your organization as a skill. Like finance, there are certain basics you must learn before you can get to the complex stuff. Tools like a Stakeholders Analysis are easy, it's what to do with it once you have it that's the hard part, and frankly where most companies fall short.

We help you build a program that can be part of your normal Training and Development program that acts as a sort of reward for the people chosen. While Human Resources manages it, they don't own the execution, the people who have been chosen do, acting as Train the Trainers once NexGen has trained them. Of course we monitor to ensure the training is being delivered properly, but this is an example of our philosophy of "teach a man to fish...". If you didn't read my Letter from the Founder, go back to it so you understand what I mean.

So how do you MEASURE the benefits? This is the easy part. As part of your normal metrics (please tell me you have a Balanced Scorecard!) you add an Employee Morale Indicator (EMI) to your scorecard. There are TONS of survey's out there to measure this, it's become a commodity and NexGen has one should you want us to manage it. The key is to get the right questions on the monthly or quarterly survey, and to change them at the right time. Yes, you want to see consistency for trending, but you also want the employees to want to take the survey, and not just click through mindlessly, as some do when the questions are always the same. You can ask the same question in may different ways...its knowing when to change it up so people stay engaged. This is critical when working on specific initiatives, but should become a regular practice in your organization.

While this all seems logical to most, and easy to do, it's the execution of this and the embedding it as a part of how you run your business that's the difficult. Like anything, it's takes a strategy, plan, owner and rigor to make it part of your normal processes. I can guarantee having a skill like Change Management in house will not only save you lots of consulting fees, but will help you reach your strategic and operational goals, and give you a competitive advantage in the market.

Have questions? Contact me: carlazilka@nexgenadvisors.com

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