In Short: How does this work?

This major change started in your organization long before you were directly involved. The company's top executives set a new direction -- or strategy -- for the business and came to realize that the operation would not be able to implement that strategy. Some of them -- acting as Senior Sponsors -- authorized a wide-reaching project to transform the way the company works so that the strategy could be pursued.

These Senior Sponsors wrote a short document called the Charge for Change that paints a vision for the future and sets the boundaries for transformation.

Then, a group of two or three dozen people from all levels throughout the organization met to create a Charter for Change. The Charter they wrote describes how people get involved in the project and how change is actually implemented.

The people who wrote the Charter formed a small Operational Leadership Team to arrange for the special training of people who volunteer to work on the transformation project. These people serve on Change Teams and as Change Agents, Champions and Team Coaches.

A Change Agent takes responsibility for an idea about a possible change, organizes it into a Change Initiative and finds someone to be a Champion. The Champion finds supporters for the Change Initiative, helps get resources and neutralizes opposition to the initiative. The Change Agent recruits people to join the team and gets the Change Team started working together. Then, the Change Agent's work is finished for a while. (After the team completes its initiative, the Change Agent comes back to write a report about what happened.)

The Change Team studies the plan the Change Agent put together for change. The team asks, "How does the way this work is done keep us from becoming the organization we've decided to be?" and "How will we go about changing it?"

The Change Team figures out, with a lot of input and participation from the people who will be directly affected by their changes, how to reinvent the work process.

While the team is implementing change, it uses a Team Coach to help its members work together effectively, keep growing and stay focused on their mission.

Once the Change Team has implemented its change and reinforced it so that it can't change back, the team disbands. Its work is done.

Now only if it were that simple - right?

© 1997 ChangeCraft™

Written by: Heidi Jeanne Hess
(Doug Wesley contributed)

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