Releasing Your Change Initiative To the Change Team Once all the preparation is done by the Change Agent, it's time to let the Change Initiative and the Change Team go. This is probably the hardest thing for a Change Agent to do. You've poured your heart and soul into the initiative and now it's time to say good-bye. You will have to trust your preparation and the team you have recruited. As Change Agent, you arrange for the team to go through a tough two-day development and planning process. During this time, both the initiative and the team will undergo a "trial by fire" to assure they are strong enough to succeed in implementation. The Test. Your team will present its initiative to several other teams that are also going through the development session. It's up to the other teams to poke holes in the initiative: to take exception to the plan, to find wider implications, to point out reasons that the plan will not work. During this half-day testing period, you will be with the team serving as a resource to help create a presentation that is bullet-proof -- but only the team can present. If the initiative you have planned continues to fail to stand up against this "classroom" attack (or if the team you have recruited cannot effectively defend the initiative), it is probably not time for implementation. It may be appropriate for the Change Agent - AND the team - to decide to withdraw, strengthen the weaknesses in the initiative (or in the team), regroup, and come back to a later development session. Your effective research, planning, recruiting and team preparation can prevent this withdrawal, though. Sounds pretty tough, doesn't it? But if you think about it, the test is the closest thing to a guarantee that the Change Team will be ready for the task at hand. Making change is not easy. Making change stick is even harder. Teams must be fit to respond to the opposition they will encounter throughout their work. Once the initiative is accepted by other teams in the development group, you -- as Change Agent -- are no longer needed. The team you recruited now owns the initiative. The team can continue alone with the process of developing itself and planning its work. Letting go of a project can be extremely difficult. But this testing process will allow you to have confidence that the team you recruited and the project you created will survive and become a change that is necessary to the transformation of your organization. Your initiative is born and takes
on its own life when you release it to the Change Team. If you have chosen and prepared
them well, they will have a good, strong start. They will bring the initiative to
maturity. © 1997 ChangeCraft ™ Written by Veronica Boaz, Heidi Jeanne Hess and Doug Wesley Check Point (Please complete and submit the Form below) When you are finished
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