How to Influence Leaders When Driving Strategy and Change

The key to a successful change program is management and leadership commitment to the proposed communication strategy. The greatest challenge for change managers is to ensure that leaders stay on message and do not waiver from the challenges ahead. Change is hard, whether you are at the frontline, or at the executive leadership level. But the most difficult role of all to cope with change is the leader, because pressures come from leadership team members warning against the changes, for many unfounded reasons. And they advise it is always safer to stay with what is known even if it is not the best outcome for the organisation rather than to take a risk to try to innovate and do something new that is untested.

So here's what can you do to ensure that the focus stays on strategy.

1. Establish a project management team comprised of key leaders that focus on enterprise wide change and dependencies and is chaired by the CEO or department head. This ensures that the silo mentality is broken down as managers are required to adapt to a new process, that is, thinking of their specific project and the impact across the organisation, which in turns changes behaviour.

2. From a change communication perspective it is important to ensure that communication is timely and aligned with progress at each of these change meetings. More importantly it is essential to communicate how each project and strategy execution is aligned with the enterprise wide vision and direction of the organisation. This way employees and managers will understand how individual projects are linked and how the organisational strategy is dependent on them all coming together.

3. All members of the leadership team need to be aligned. They must have consistent messaging regarding the direction they are communicating and that it is linked to the organisational vision and strategy. The need to communicate this face to face and influence support, provide specific details of the positive outcomes of the strategy to those who are accountable for driving aspects of the strategy.

4. Identifying and communicating the performance requirements linked to the strategy and confirming this at regular intervals throughout the year keeps everyone focused on the strategy and tasks.

5. Ensure that all managers make the strategy reviews and updates a key part of their regular team meetings.

6. Implementation is the most difficult aspect to manage successfully of any project because this is when it becomes real - most resistance will be at this phase of strategy execution, so it is important to have engagement strategies in place before this phase.

7. Identify those members of the leadership team most likely to be committed to achieving the outcomes and design a specific role for them to influence their peers and their management teams.

8. Where project management falls down is at the middle management level unless they have been engaged from the beginning and this means actually involved in the project and being able to influence the direction. This is where significant undermining occurs of project implementation and that is largely based in fear. Find out what the fear is and then address it and ensure that middle management are engaged from the beginning so they feel less threatened by the unknown.

Senior management provide direction for the strategy, ensure that appropriate resources both people and dollars are available, are focussed and directly involved and aware of all the issues and risks of the project and most importantly provide updates and direction on an ongoing basis. The role of the change manager is to support this by ensuring that all the other issues that could derail the project are dealt with so that the senior leadership do not back track on the strategy.

Finally to maintain commitment to change all projects needs to be integrated into the longer term strategy and vision of the organisation and for all employees from frontline to senior leadership to understand how the project and their role contributes to the overall vision. Change is only successful when it is seamlessly integrated into the way the organisation operates, not as an appendage to the organisation.

About the author: Marcia Xenitelis is a recognized authority on the subject of change communication and helping organizations achieve their business goals by engaging employees. She has consulted widely to business, spoken at conferences around the world and has developed products focused on change management. For access to case studies and more information on the types of strategies you can implement to engage employees visit her website for a wealth of free informative articles and resources. http://www.marciaxenitelis.com

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The 3 Key Reasons Change Communication Messages Fail

Given the number of number of times organisations embark on communicating change you think they would eventually get it right. But many things get in the way, not the least of which is thinking that communicating change is easy and that what works in one organisation will work in another. Those of us who develop change communication strategies know that this is not the case, change is difficult, it is different for every organisational culture and the approach needs to be customised each time.

Here are the 3 key reasons change communication messages fail and what you can do about it to ensure that your change messages get traction.

1. The first key mistake is when the focus of the message is on the what, not the why. The key message should not be about the project or the IT system, if that is what the change is about, it is always about the why. You need to explain how the change links to organisational strategy and specifically how what leaders and employees do in their role will change. The important aspect here is that the change is not just because of a new process but due to the organisational strategy behind its implementation. And yes you read that correctly, you need to connect the dots for leaders as well. Never assume that they understand the why behind a change initiative. If leaders are a key part of your communication approach as they always should be, then they must all be on the same page when it comes to explaining and supporting change initiatives.

2. Many times the key message communicated to employees during transformation programs is the need to change the way they do things. Sometimes unintentionally the message is heard that they way they do things is wrong and needs to improve. Successful change communication focuses on what is good about what employees do and how together we can build on this. By focussing on positive messages and finding creative ways to communicate them and not relying on online tools, you have a much greater change of encouraging employees to participate and support chance initiatives.

3. Change is never owned by the change team. The role of the change team is to provide the tools and techniques to enable transformation to occur within the organisation, change communication has to be owned by the leaders and employees within the organisation. If you stop and assess your current change programs, ask yourself the question, "When the change team ceases to exist will we have transferred capability and appetite to drive change within the organisation?" If the answer is no, then your change communication strategy will surely fail as it will only be transactional and not embedded into the culture of the organisation. The focus of any change communication strategy needs to be action oriented techniques, not just providing information on what is changing and when.

Whether you are implementing new IT systems and processes, merging with another organisation or any other change initiative, the above 3 reasons why change communication fails provides an opportunity to reassess change communication to ensure successful organisational transformation.

About the author: Marcia Xenitelis is a recognized authority on the subject of change communication and helping organizations achieve their business goals by engaging employees. She has consulted widely to business, spoken at conferences around the world and has developed products focused on change management. For access to case studies and more information on the types of strategies you can implement to engage employees visit her website for a wealth of free informative articles and resources. http://www.marciaxenitelis.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9359982

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Business Agility Means Releasing Old Habits and Integrating New Ones

Does the phrase, "United we stand, divided we fall" have any relevance to today's need for business agility or strong, decisive leadership? Whether it's business, with friends or family, when is separation ever as agile or effective as integration?

Integrating your thoughts, words, and actions will just about always provide you with more strength, agility and flow than trying to go it with mixed emotions and/or alone. In the turbulent times we are entering, the more you integrate yourself and then integrate with those around you, the more agile and successful you will be in navigating the increasing uncertainty, which is now appearing more quickly and in larger doses.

Integrate literally means to make whole and how effective or powerful do you think you can be if you are split into pieces? Although it is extremely important for a department or team to focus on the task at hand, setting up barriers (consciously or not) from the rest of the organization will heighten the risk of overlooking threats and opportunities. This works on all levels of any organization, including your own body. In fact, more evidence is surfacing every day that points to the increased risk disease or disability by becoming unconscious of or ignoring a part of your body. In fact, research points to cancer flourishing in areas of the body that do not receive enough oxygen! Extrapolate this evidence to an organization and what happens to dedicated people in groups who feel cut off, suppressed or alienated? Who doesn't resent being ignored? Wouldn't you too begin focusing on everything but the critical task at hand? Feeling unheard makes us humans naturally begin looking for other options or alternatives to make us feel whole.

Integration breaks down without a constant flow of energy and information streaming throughout all parts of the body in question. Be it the corporate body or your own, the more animated and agile it is, the more you can depend upon it working, even under increased stress. Keeping secrets, hiding or suppressing the truth or masking the pain will ultimately consume more energy than just releasing the information in question directly, then dealing with the consequences. Ask virtually anyone with a conscience still intact in politics or the financial sector... You see you can release the information and proceed to the next issue or you can re-lease it and keep paying for limiting its access. Often, re-leasing your deception means paying interest, which compounds. If you still doubt this cheap lesson in wisdom, ask any person involved in a cover-up. Whether personal, corporate and/or political, and regardless of its tactical success, ask the wise participant what it ultimately cost and listen with all your senses to their answer. If they are honest, you will get a fair summation of the stress, pain and loss of integrity involved. If they're not, sense the energy still needed to continue keeping his/her controversial issue under wraps.

Want an easy lesson in this? Think back to a presentation you made where you were not thoroughly prepared. Be it business or school; think about how much energy it took to try not to look nervous. How well did that go? If you lucked out and got away with it, how energized did you feel for the rest of the day? How well did you sleep that night? If you got caught, was it because you realized that you were actually not fooling anyone? Never forget, the body (be it corporate or your own) does not have the capacity to lie. It can hide stuff, but more and more people are learning where to look for the truth. Whether with help from the Internet or just learning to read body language and the message in front of you, the truth is always available for those willing and trained to look.

With the advent of the Internet, more and more well hidden secrets are being exposed concerning all manner of leaders, organizations and institutions. Far-fetched conspiracies as well as urban myths are beginning to be exposed from the local priest to the highest levels of politics and business. The costs are becoming too high and the webs of deception too complex to maintain. To become and remain agile, focused upon what's ahead instead of what's behind, you and your organization will need all the energy you can get. Quit compartmentalizing issues and rid yourselves of your company's inhibiting behaviors. Become conscious of what your corporate, as well as you own, body is doing and then learn to appreciate the flexibility this relaxed, agile way of living and doing business.

Kurt Larsson is the Co-Author of the book, "Mastering Agility, Successfully Navigating Uncertainty". This book is packed with both the reasons you need to Get Agile Now or die trying, as well as simple, practical C-Level management tools to help you along your path to mastering agility. Look for it on Amazon.

For more information, contact us at the following link: http://minervaclp.com/contact-us/

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Plan B: The Pivot

By now you have reviewed your prior year numbers and know how you feel about the results. If revenue has been less than stellar for two or more consecutive years, it's time to think seriously about how to respond more effectively to the environment that your organization faces. Create a Plan B and pivot.

Or maybe your numbers were more than respectable, but because you are a savvy market strategist, you know to look three years down the road and follow the advice of hockey immortal Wayne Gretzky and skate not to where the puck has been, but to where it's going to be. Scanning the horizon for potentially lucrative opportunities and the willingness to pivot is always a good idea for those in business.

To pivot is to adjust your business model in response to current or impending conditions, good or bad. To increase the probability that the tweaking will be successful and you'll be able to engineer a good pivot, trend and financial analyses, along with planning, are imperative. Market research and reality (i.e.market) testing of what you think will work are the foundation of your pivot plan.

Start with an analysis of the types of clients that hired you and the projects you were asked to do. A successful pivot could entail expanding your outreach to those clients. What other services could you provide and how might you persuade clients to upgrade what they hired you to do previously? Also, how can you obtain repeat business this year, so that you can maximize the launch of upgrades?

Conduct some self-guided market research and apply the findings to the creation of a pivot strategy.You might receive clues about which of your products and services clients value most, services you might expand and upgrade, or additional services you can sell by reading blogs and newsletters followed by those in the industries that hire you.

Invite a favorite client out to lunch or coffee and diplomatically inquire about his/her organization's future plans, or current hot buttons in that industry. I think you can afford to be frank and let the client know that you enjoy working with him/her and that you wonder how else you might be of service. Don't be shy! You need information to set up a marketing test so that you can identify the Plan B to pivot into, plus a marketing message to announce and sell it.

Alan Spoon, general partner at the Boston office of Polaris Venture Partners, recommends that you closely study your customers' broader behaviors around the use of your products and services. Your research should help you address these questions:

• What do I do that is perceived by clients as distinctly valuable and could potentially be extended to other client needs?
• Are there products and services that can have an ongoing use and thus extend billing beyond the initial project?

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Kim L. Clark is an external consultant who provides strategy and marketing solutions to for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. Kim is the founder and principal of Polished Professionals Boston and she teaches business plan writing to aspiring entrepreneurs. Visithttp://polishedprofessionalsboston.com for more information

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Superbosses - Wanting the Best!

There are many articles, books, and countless conversations of what traits create a great leader or what we're calling a SuperBoss.

So what makes a SuperBoss? My research on Superbosses led me to a well-known academic and writer named Sydney Finkelstein, a professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. In essence, a SuperBoss has a unique charter with, a limited ego and surrounds him or herself with the best talent, even if this talent is more refined or advanced than that of the boss. For the SuperBoss, the recruitment process starts by seeking out people with the highest intelligence, creativity, and flexibility. Creating a team of winners is the only priority. The Superboss job is to coordinate the team and create a spirit of camaraderie toward the same goals. A team's success does not necessarily mean a commitment towards each other but towards the project at hand. It is also important to understand the teams competitiveness is not a bad thing, if managed effectively which can create better results.

There are also many studies of what not to do as a boss, and I'm sure we all have our opinions. To list some simple adjectives of bad bosses; incompetent, controlling delegator, indecisive type, always thinking they're right, stubborn managers, talking change but are stagnant, micromanaging, fear tactics, lack of vision, favoritism, just to name a few.

To summarize horrible bosses are driven by emotions versus the facts, and this leads to low morale, reduced productivity, the inability to achieve goals, and the loss of good employees..

A great leader makes decisions by using data to back up his or her decisions. Bosses who fail to conduct a comprehensive review are running on emotions, which lead to poor decisions.

Workplaces talk about improvements, innovation, expansion, and profitability, but many cannot change the inner workings to achieve greater success. To generate results poor bosses may take an ax to management, staffing, policies and procedures but no matter what strategies are attempted, results continue, to spiral downward. There is no excuse for mediocre results. Tolerating mediocrity is an admission of failure.

Superbosses understand that smart, creative, flexible people tend to have fast-paced careers, your typical boss may say he or she is overqualified and would soon want to move on. A Superboss would embrace these individuals maximizing his or her knowledge and talent.

Mr. Finkelstein has categorized Superbosses into three styles of management. The first is the glorious bastard who cares only about winning but realizes the need to develop the best people. The second type is the Nurturer. This individual is the coach, teacher, and the mentor. This individual takes pride in bringing others along and cares deeply about the success of others. Lastly the Iconoclasts, This individual operates in creative fields where his or her inner passion inspires others. The fundamental characteristic of all three categories is each is not afraid to recruit and hire individual that have great wealth or talent.

As with any boss, it requires hands-on-leadership, but Superbosses have a distinct quality of having people do what they thought was impossible. Superbosses are masters and extremely efficient delegators. They have this ability chose smart, ambitious, adaptable people and offer them a vision and trust. Superbosses encourage and create steps for change and personal growth. They provide advancement opportunities far beyond those found in traditional organizations by customizing career paths. Lastly, they stay connected, even after team members move on, they continue networking and maintaining communications, giving advice and direction.

A SuperBoss has the personal confidence to recruit the best and understand a leap of faith is required. To the bosses that cannot move forward with hiring and retention of the best, it may be time to hire a third party consultant who can analyzes and articulates the pitfalls and bottlenecks within the organization. A fresh eye deep mussel comprehensive inner looking's of the organization is just what may be required. As with any review or audit, how it is presented is important and should never be punitive but a step toward improvement.

The simplest way to describe a SuperBoss is a leader that does not have a strict management style, has the ability to adapt to situations, and does not allow personal insecurities to get in the way of making a good business decisions. Superbosses understand no matter the talent nurturing and motivating is an essential requirement with surrounding yourself with the best team. They are always seeking the best people and keeping staff focused and engaged.

Andrew Catalano's Bio:

Andrew Catalano resides in Maspeth, New York, and has worked in the hospitality service industry for over 30 years. Experiences with but not limited to; working with union and non-union operations, for-profit and not-for-profits in all segments of the industry; private ownership, corporate, education, and healthcare - (acute and LTC). Andrew is an adjunct professor at CUNY and the Institute of Culinary Educations, and a certified instructor with the National Restaurant Association, holding an NYS teaching permit. As the owner principle of Strategic Management Consultants Andrew prides himself on offering Shopper service, fresh eye reviews for the service operator to include financial audits, management evaluations, labor optimization, marketing strategies, food safety, and employee training for both front line and management staff. Andrew holds a Master degree in Business Management, which gives him the refined skills to think through the problems, refine the vision, and plan next steps to improve the quality and value of an operation. Please contact Andrew Catalano at cat2380@msn.com with your questions or to schedule a business review.

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Tackling the Greatest Inhibitors to Business Agility

Business Agility is all the rage! Look at all the books and articles on how wonderful life will be when your business becomes agile. Yet how easy is it to become more agile when you even just focusing on the four most prominent inhibitors lurking in your organization pushing you maintain your own brand of business as usual.

According to McKinsey and others, there are four primary inhibitors that can destroy your plans for and implementations of a more agile way of doing business:

• Underlying IT systems
• Corporate Culture
• Organizational Structure
• Business Process

Underlying IT Systems

Your underlying IT systems can constrain your agility without you even being aware of them. Creativity suffers in a digital world of ones and zeros. Once set up, everyone and everything must conform to their standards rather than vice versa. Add to this the leveraging effect of GIGO or Garbage In, Garbage Out, and one internal mail to everyone, based upon a false fact or figure and you can literally sabotage even the most well thought out strategy. It is now more important than ever to locate that balance point between acting and reporting.

Corporate Culture

How aware are you of the written and unwritten rules that influence and often rule how your organization interacts, both internally and externally? Like the proverbial fish out of water, culture is something so transparent when you're in it that you it is almost impossible to notice until you are thrown out of it. As David Gerber wrote in his book "The E Myth", you can either work "in your business" or look upon it from outside and work "on your business". Can you guess which is harder to do? To take a detached view of what you do takes training, but without even attempting to look on your business you will never see how your own cultural behavior is slowly suffocating your company.

Organizational Structure

The older and bigger your organization gets, the more rules and guidelines for doing business the "(Enter your company name here) way" becomes. Add to this the extra press of your IT Systems and reporting structures and pretty soon it takes days to negotiate the paperwork and sign-offs necessary to take a day's training or upgrade your PC. Look no further than how many laws are passed DAILY in every country on the planet and soon even law-abiding citizens are breaking some kind of law or statute without even knowing it.

Business process

There are a number of very successful processes out there such as 6 Sigma, Lean Production, etc. They are designed to cater to the greatest common factors regarding your average employee. Yet this means that all outliers, entrepreneurs and anyone on the cutting edge will be marginalized. If you are looking for a great way to stifle creativity and courage, look no further. If you are looking to encourage these over achievers, then you need to relax those critical bottlenecks where they feel constrained. Look no further than the former telecoms giant Motorola and what happened when 6 Sigma took over the company. Designed by Bill white in 1966, this business process permeated the company to such a degree that many of the creative people who were responsible for Motorola's success were driven out to more creative pastures. Combined with a major financial storm or two, these factors were enough to cause the company to die first a slow, then a faster death.

Each one of these inhibitors can kill any attempts to create a sense of agility in your organization. Combine them and your chances to extract your company from the clutches of business as usual, drop to virtually zero. Why?

... because we are creatures of habit. As much as most of us love to talk about change we are only really for it when requires someone else to change. We love certainty and we build systems, cultures and behavior to create that certainty, yet we constantly get fooled into a false sense of security that our complex models provide. Look no further than Long Term Capital Management and the two Nobel Laureates that almost crashed the financial system in 1996 because their investment model was not broad or robust enough to handle the larger than expected event of Russia defaulting on its bonds.

The key to meeting the challenges of these common inhibitors is to become agile. Yet your agility must be an effective blend of strategic, operational as well as relational tools and practices. Focusing only upon one of these areas is like sitting on a one or two-legged stool, neither stable nor comfortable and it will leave you vulnerable for shocks for which you are not prepared.

The biggest step you can take to begin the process of handling these inhibitors is to balance the application of agility tools from these three areas and focus your energy upon the horizon rather than all of your past achievements. No matter how good you once were, if your systems and culture are focused on Key Performance Indicators that are based upon history, you may miss the next big trend or the approaching financial storm. The market will not forgive you no matter how wonderful you think your culture is. Just ask Nokia, Motorola, DEC and many other late, great companies. Think forward, think Agility!

Kurt Larsson is the Co-Author of the book, "Mastering Agility, Successfully Navigating Uncertainty". This book is packed with both the reasons you need to Get Agile Now or die trying, as well as simple, practical C-Level management tools to help you along your path to mastering agility. Look for it on Amazon.

For more information, contact us at the following link: http://minervaclp.com/contact-us/

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Succession Planning And The Need For Recruitment Process Outsourcing Connections

Every year it seems that some premiership managers will only last a matter of weeks in the job. There is a lot of criticism around these short tenures, many argue that managers should be allowed longer to achieve culture changes, or personnel changes required to achieve success, and others who are less forgiving say that you shouldn't put up with underperformance.

But if a football manager is fired after only a short time in their job, does that mean that no succession planning has been going on? The financial cost of failure and the opportunity cost of missed success can be so great that the pressures to find the right manager or a better manager are huge. So when a manager gets the sack after a short tenure, do the board and club owners suddenly start to look around at who is available for their next appointment. That has to be a resounding no. There has to be a continual process of evaluating who is available to take over before the existing manager is sacrificed. It wouldn't make sense to sack your manager without a replacement lined up ready to go. This must mean therefore that there is a succession plan already on place before the manager is relieved of their duties. So what forms the process of a good succession plan, and is it the same for the world of business and commerce as it is for Football?

Identify the critical positions

The critical positions in an organisation have to be the focus of succession planning. Without these roles, the organization would be unable to effectively meet its business objectives. To use our football scenario again, new appointments are usually handled by network of agents, who are associated with free personnel. The football clubs are in constant contact with agents whose job it is to inform the club at any time as to who is available in the marketplace, or who could become available at short notice.

Identify competencies

A clear understanding of capabilities is needed for successful performance and the setting of clear performance expectations, and for the assessment of performance.

Identify succession management strategies

Once critical positions have been identified the next step is to choose from developing or to look externally

Implement your succession plan

Once strategies have been identified, your succession plan needs clearly defined timelines and roles and responsibilities.

Evaluate Effectiveness

Like all good plans you need to systematically monitor all your performance data and make necessary adjustments. Using our football manager example again you may attribute points per game, as an effective measure of success, and in business you may use measures such as value of deals won or share price as your measures.

Now it is true that football managers work in a ruthless and impatient environment and business is probably more forgiving and slower to act. Nevertheless with increasing pressure form activist investors and pressure from employees and the media, chief executives have their own job security pressures. In the world of business the agents role in our football analogy is taken up by recruitment organisations, whose role it is to keep constantly up to date with the talent pool and provide the connections boards and organisations need when looking externally for executive replacement.

Having a methodical and assured process along with longstanding working relationships with recruitment companies is one way in which organisations can avoided calls of crisis, and retain the trust and confidence of shareholders and markets when changes in senior personnel take place.

It is therefore a responsible risk management approach to take to consider the process required to replace a senior person before they are lost to the organization.

One common consequence of failing to have a succession plan is that many boards panic and spend large amounts of money and time on rushed external replacements, with no affinity to the workings of the firm. This is why a well-structured and well planned succession is always preferred irrespective of whether personnel change comes from internal staff or externally.

Recruitment Process Outsourcing is one of the best tools available for companies to cost-effectively focus on finding great talent today that will be with them for the future.
Omni are an award winning outsourced recruitment services provider. They have won the prestigious Outstanding Outsourced Recruitment Organisation Award at the 2015 Recruiter Awards after being recognised for multi-sector knowledge, employer branding, innovation, and the consistent provision of a first-class RPO service. You can find out more about them by visiting http://www.omnirms.com

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