Change Management 13 things to consider

13 Things
to consider
if you want
to be taken
seriously
as a
Change
Manager

Things to consider 1-3
 Stop calling everything “Transformation”. This has become a
meaningless term in the same way that “excellence” 10 years
ago. Honestly, it cant be long before the local pizza shop will be
using the word when they do a 2 for 1 deal!
 If you think it is worth using – then at least make reference to
what is the transformation (preferably in terms real outcomes)
 Don’t be content that you understand a lot about change – get
to understand the business of your company or client. “C”
level leaders are concerned customer experience, revenue,
costs, shareholder value, share of market, digital volatility etc.
– unless and until the change work can demonstrate value in
this context, change management will remain as “chocolates
on the pillow”

 Don’t let yourself get submerged under the so-called
leadership of PM. For sure they will think that they are the
world experts on change (after doing a 4 hour add-on to their
Prince 2 training). Generally they don’t know what they don’t
know – but they will drown your change efforts…..and then
blame you and throw you under the bus
 Take the advice of Jack Welch and really understand why
change projects can fail – and be honest. So many change
people whine about change projects failing – but they seem to
never really reflect. They are however very good at blaming the
rest of the organization! It’s a bit like surgeons blaming their
patients for being unwell

 Aim to be a strategic change manager. Treat the work like a
private equity deal where speed to act is key – where you look
for the 80:20 rule and go for the big wins and the low hanging
fruit. How often do clients talk about lean projects, scrum
development, co-creation of customer experiences…..and yet
there is the change material looking no different than it did 20
years ago
 Be careful not to boast about working of big 2 year projects –
because those projects were probably 6 months projects but
everyone messed up. You only have to watch the growth of
Salesforce and their cloud solutions to know that the big, slow,
behind schedule projects are gone!!

 Stop obsessing over pretty PowerPoints. It seems that where
people labour over their slide deck, the content is usually next
to worthless. Ask yourself is the employer/client looking for
presentations or executed results.
 If you are serious about effective presentations - then go and
read Barbara Minto. Don’t know who she is? …..you should be
ashamed of yourself
 Become obsessed to understand all the leading edge work that
is being done to drive customer experience and to compensate
from the reality that 90% of all enterprise CRM systems
delivered no more than 10% of the promised benefits
 Read “The Machine That Changed The World” – it will amaze
you about Lean everything

 Build a compelling cost-benefit case for the change work that
you do
 Have a compelling change “elevator pitch” when you are in
the lift with the CEO

Change Management 13 things to consider

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Change Management 13 things to consider