Leadership

The Times They Are A Changing… Always!: Five Elements of Successful Change Leadership

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The pace of change shows no signs of slowing down. Globalization, hyper-connectedness, and immediate communication have changed the marketplace significantly and permanently. As a result, 81% of managers in one study report that the pace of change has increased compared to five years before. And 69% say that their companies experienced disruptive change within the last 12 months (AMA 2007).

We know that planned change initiatives, more often than not, disappoint. A McKinsey study reports that only 38% of change initiatives were completely or mostly successful improving performance (2006). So how do we make things better?

The Five Elements of Successful Planned Change

Active, committed change leadership.

Talent Management for CIOs: Learning from IT Networks about Organizational Networks

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Organization Network Analysis

“It’s not the technical stuff that worries me. It’s the people.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this from IT leaders. They feel confident with the infrastructure, budgeting, project delivery, support, and project management aspects of their jobs. It’s the people stuff that does them in.

It’s not surprising. People are annoyingly complex, creative, and stubborn creatures who continually find ways to do new and interesting things (when you don’t want them to) or resist change (when you want them to change). However, most IT people already have a hidden asset to help them manage people: their understanding of networks.

Five Tips for Strategic Planning That Works

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Checkmate - Omer Unlu on flickr
Only 11% of executives strongly believe that strategic planning is worth the effort (Mankins & Steele in Harvard Business Review, 1/06). Yet, companies continue to plan year after year. Surely there must be a way to reduce the pain and increase the return on investment. This article outlines tips and techniques for improving the strategic planning process.

The Most Important Positions In Your Company: Lessons from Organizational Networks

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Every organization has a hidden system: a web of relationships and informal networks that people use to complete day-to-day work. This system has its benefits: it helps get things done, disseminate knowledge, and incubate innovation. However, most leaders are unaware of how these networks influence productivity or workflow. By ignoring human networks, leaders miss out on an important network dynamic that can make or break talent management and change initiatives.

Within every network, 5 – 10% of nodes (in this case, individuals) represent critical connectors. These individuals have disproportionate influence over the whole. The critical connectors are:

Hubs – Highly connected individuals who communicate directly and frequently; Gatekeepers – Individuals who manage information flow between areas or around expertise; and Pulsetakers – Quiet, behind-the-scenes influencers who subtly lead and learn.

Your Turn: Did the Change Work?

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Test Your Change Leadership Knowledge

It’s your turn to make the decision. Test your change leadership knowledge through this quick self-directed learning activity.

In this 1-page case study, the new Executive Director of a nonprofit organization needs to decide how well his change initiatives have been implemented and what his next steps should be. You have information about the change initiatives and data about how people collaborate.

"Who Trumps How": How to Use Organizational Networks to Improve Succession Planning

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Succession planning is a great idea. All too often, though, it fails to deliver on its promises by promoting the wrong person into the job.

The problem is that the people making the decision use the information they have at hand about the person’s knowledge, skills, and experience in the company. That sounds good, but it’s missing something important: the relationships.

People get things done in organizations through people. And if the relationships aren’t strong, the person won’t succeed.

Check out this quick slide show to see a story of succession gone wrong, and why, through the lens of organizational networks.

Measuring the Intangible through Organizational Networks

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There are many ways to evaluate culture, collaboration, employee morale, team performance, and the impact of restructuring. But it’s difficult to measure all five at once without over-stressing the organization. The National Braille Press successfully used organizational networks and network analysis to evaluate its progress and identify simple but effective improvement actions. Read National Braille Press White Paper to find out how they did it.

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