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Harnessing the Energy of Change Champions
By Jim Clemmer
Peter Drucker once said "whenever anything is being accomplished,
it is being done, I have learned, by a monomaniac with a mission."
That sure squares with my own consulting experience. When I look back
at the hundreds of team or organization changes I've been involved in
during the last three decades, most successful – and certainly all
major ones – were driven by "monomaniacs with a mission."
Sometimes the champion had a powerful organizational sponsor running interference
for the passionate person who was pushing hard for a change or improvement.
Other times, he or she was on their own at first and built a strong change
coalition or team of change champions.
The change could have been in an accounting or human resource system.
It could be a clinical service, record keeping procedure, training program,
or work process. Sometimes it was to the organization structure, key process
or decisions on the core services the organization was providing. Research
into the nature of innovation and organization change clearly shows the
key role change champions play in team and organization change. They are
needed to overcome the bureaucratic response of "we've always done
it this way" (which almost guarantees it's no longer relevant today).
Champions push against the inertia, passive resistance, or outright opposition
that resists most changes – even if they're for the better.
A good champion is passionate about their cause or change. He or she is
a staunch, zealous fanatic. A great champion is emotional, irrational,
irreverent, impatient, and unreasonable. He or she wants the change –
no matter how big – to happen this week, this month, or certainly
by the end of this quarter. To an impassioned change champion, the sky
is often falling and the situation is desperately urgent.
The improvement opportunity the change champion is advocating is often
presented as the one and only key to the organization's future. Highly
effective change champions don't just rock the boat, they sometimes capsize
it. They want to disrupt and demolish the status quo. Many of the best
champions don't just want change; they want a revolution.
With their focus on ordered, controlled, and planned "change management,"
many managers suppress or drive out champions. In an oppressive environment
numerous would-be champions become good little bureaucrats conforming
to the official plans and obediently following "the system."
Others subversively continue to make changes out of sight of management
or the bureaucracy. Some leave to start their own businesses or join a
less stifling, more entrepreneurial organization.
Change champions are vital learning leaders for an organization. But many
are not in formal leadership roles. We need to harness their energy, ideas,
and creativity today more than ever. But we have to learn how to coordinate
their unbounded and disruptive zeal. Their energy needs to be gently directed
toward our larger goals and improvement process. Change champions have
great strengths, but many also have glaring weaknesses. For example, they
may refuse to see or try to understand the need for a delicate balance
between change and stability.
We can't manage change (a true oxymoron) or champions. Sometimes the best
we can do is point them in the right direction and get out of the way.
Then sponsor and protect them from the bureaucracy when they need it (servant-leadership).
Once change champions have found the new trail, we can pave it over and
make it official. Then we can set the relevant teams or parts of our organization
on this new road to higher performance. Meanwhile – if we have a
healthy culture of innovation and organizational learning – more
change champions are getting ready to move us off this track. Today's
solutions are already creating tomorrow's problems.
Let's Get Practical
Following are a few approaches that have proven successful in nurturing,
harnessing, and leading change champions to move the organization forward:
| • |
You can't encourage and support what you don't know
is happening. The most interesting and useful local change and improvement
initiatives rarely make it into reports or formal channels. That may
be because they're "illegally" breaking corporate rules,
deviating from the standard process, or failing to follow the official
plan. It may be because local champions or teams (skunk works) don't
realize the significance of their innovation to the rest of the organization
or a potential new market. |
| • |
One non-negotiable is that all improvement activities focus outward.
All changes either serve an external client or partner or serve somebody
who is. Changes that make internal life easier but reduce care, service,
quality, or innovation aren't improvements. Current and potential
clients and/or the partners serving them should be at the center of,
or key members on, the local learning teams. They need to be "mucking
around" to find new and improved ways of producing, delivering,
or supporting your products and services. |
| • |
Demonstration or pilot projects are powerful learning, change, and
improvement tools. These can be great opportunities to set up a "greenfield
site." This is where you can test new structures, tools, and
techniques. |
| • |
A highly effective leader can have twenty years of rich learning
and experience. But many mediocre performers have one year of experience
multiplied twenty times. The same learning disability afflicts organizations
that haven't developed the systems and practices for transferring
and communicating the rich learning that comes from local initiatives.
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| • |
Institute an internal "best practices and good tries"
system, clearinghouse, or network. You could have intranet sites,
frequent meetings, voice or e-mail learning exchange systems, team
visits, project fairs, or other share-and-compare forums. Measurement
systems and feedback loops should make the results every team is getting
highly visible and widely available to everyone. Your education, training,
and communication activities should continuously keep people throughout
your organization in touch what's working and what isn't. |
| • |
Celebrate, publicize, recognize, honor, thank, applaud, and otherwise
encourage champions and local teams who take initiative to change
and improve their part of the world. |
| • |
Look for the existing leaders and champions who are making improvements
and changes. Shape your improvement plan and process by building on
their energy and experience. Since change champions won't be covering
all areas as completely as possible, they are also the logical starting
point for making the changes and improvements that will better round
out and balance your long term effort. |
| • |
Develop change and improvement momentum by building around the
champions who are most likely to make the effort succeed. They will
help to bring the others on side. They are also the ones you and everyone
else can learn the most from. But don't try to impose their successful
approaches on others. Ownership and personalization are the keys to
local adaptation of changes and improvements. Sell, persuade, educate,
and communicate. |
| • |
Don't automatically label resistance to change as negative and something
to be overcome or beaten back. The real enemy of organizational change
is apathy. "Just tell me what you want done, boss, so I can get
out of this place and on with my real life" is the attitude that
kills change. Resistors often have strong passion and high energy.
They resist because they care. Understand the roots of their resistance
and re-channel it. Get them inside the circle of wagons shooting out.
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Discuss with your management team how your successful change champions
(some of whom will be present) have emerged and been supported in
the past. What can you learn from those experiences? How does your
bureaucracy suppress or drive out emerging champions? How can you
ensure that change champions get the mentoring, sponsorship, and management
support they need to buck the system? What do your champions think?
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The single biggest key to leading change and nurturing champions from
the middle or lower levels of an organization is to not dis-empower yourself.
Don't point your finger upward and say most of these points apply to "them."
If you're not a senior manager, your organization change and improvement
choices are:
| 1. |
Do nothing but complain and hope "they" smarten up |
| 2. |
Quit , or |
| 3. |
Make as many changes as you can in your own area. Help others to
change and try to influence the system. In other words, act like a
leader! |
| Jim Clemmer is a bestselling author and internationally
acclaimed keynote speaker, workshop/retreat leader, and management
team developer on leadership, change, customer focus, culture, teams,
and personal growth. During the last 25 years he has delivered over
two thousand customized keynote presentations, workshops, and retreats.
Jim's five international bestselling books include The VIP Strategy,
Firing
on All Cylinders, Pathways
to Performance, Growing
the Distance, and The
Leader's Digest. His web site is www.clemmer.net.
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