Tip #36: Consider How Your Change May Impact Existing Relationships Today’s post is a picture that tells a story of two ways one can view the impact of change on existing relationships. For clarity, it can help to think of your change as bringing about the end of something and the beginning of something new. [...]

Change Agent Tip #27: Look Under the Wrapper The Easter holiday season has just wrapped up. Last week was one of the peak periods of the year for chocolate sales. Store aisles and end caps were stacked high with bunnies, bars, baskets and all sizes and shapes of chocolate delights. Anyone who stuffed an Easter [...]

Change Agent Tip #26 A wise man once told me that one reason people struggle with change is that it often means we’re going to lose something. It’s Personal: Consider the last time you were impacted by a significant change at work (or in life). You may have been asked to give up something in [...]

 Change Agent Tip #25 One of my favorite parts of helping people deal with change is the chance I get to work with some incredibly talented leaders at all levels of my client organizations. One such leader had a great way of boiling complex behavioral expectations down to simple phrases that I like to call [...]

Before you pull the trigger on your big culture change – consider answering a few simple questions… So far in this series, I’ve suggested a few ways that Change Agents can start the process of moving their culture in a specific positive direction. I started by recommending that they choose very carefully what elements of [...]

I love college basketball. My favorite team is my alma mater, the University of Illinois Fighting Illini. Coach Bruce Weber’s over-achievers had just clawed their way into the Top 25 this past week only to lose to a feisty Penn State squad. While the loss was tough for me to watch, I did hear a [...]

In this final post of a 4-part series, I’ll wrap up a recipe for change success based on the notion that Change Agents should treat their work like a project. The first three posts suggested you apply classic project management discipline to: … clearly define and manage change activities, … execute change adoption plans based [...]

In an earlier post, I advised Change Agents to treat their change like a project in order to give it the structure and discipline needed for successful execution.  I also described a set of four “must haves” for Change Agents to deliver these projects. The list of key ingredients in my recipe for change project [...]

People often ask me the difference between “Change Management” and “Change Leadership”. In my last post, I answered the question with the old axiom: “You manage things and you lead people…”. I also listed some of the critical things (such as work activities, budgets and schedule dependencies) that Change Agents need to manage. Today I’ll [...]

When it comes to driving significant change in an organization, the old paradigm “…you manage things and you lead people…” is fairly accurate and surprisingly useful. Today’s tip covers how to recognize which elements of a Change Agent’s work are best addressed by management techniques. My next post will address the elements that require Change [...]

In my last post, I described a process Change Agents can use to gather preliminary data about the types of resistance they may expect to their change. As you follow through on the surveys, interviews and site visits as I described, you will start to amass a wealth of raw data. This data will contain [...]

Every change is subject to some level of resistance and stakeholders will express it in any number of ways. Instead of simply tolerating resistance or cowering in the face of it – Change Agents should seek out the loudest detractors and leverage the momentum they can provide. The first steps to converting negative resistance into [...]

Some teams work for months or years to implement a change, then limp across the finish line burned out and ready to shut down. Others reminisce fondly about having been part of a great team that accomplished something significant. What sets the two apart? I would argue the one of the most critical factors in [...]

Sponsors and Change Agents often use a common metaphor when they encourage the targets of their change to “get on the bus before it leaves“. When it comes to helping people deal with change, the only outcomes worse than seeing stakeholders miss that bus could be seeing them get on the wrong bus or even [...]