Be A Chief Change Agent, Part 1

Whether you’re a CEO or simply a person who can drive change in your organization, you know that leading change is hard. Since 2009, the U.S. has seen unprecedented releases of CEOs who were held accountable for failures with change inside their organizations–either by omission or commission. Why does change cause so many failures?

Promotional Consultant Today begins a short series on driving change, starting with five easy failures.

Easy Failure No. 1–Bad Decisions. The CEO who allows the organization to make flawed strategic decisions destines failure from the get-go. Too easily, CEOs get sidetracked by complacency, pet projects, executive ego, managing for outside opinions or following an unanalyzed industry trend.

Easy Failure No. 2–Poor Leadership. If half of organizational changes fail because of bad decisions on what to change, then the other half of failures are caused by how the changes were executed. A bad change process or bad timing will ruin even good decisions.

Easy Failure No. 3–Unclear Results. When the CEO hasn’t made clear where the organization needs to go, any path managers and employees choose will get them there.

Easy Failure No. 4–Unengaged Workforce. Micro-management is the fastest way to kill employee engagement. When a CEO or top executive over-directs the organizational change, participation of other levels of employees is quickly squashed.

Easy Failure No. 5–Invisible CEO. Under-involvement of the CEO and top leaders is equally as damaging as over-involvement. Low CEO support throughout the change effort is taken as a sure sign that the change is not important and no one is watching.

Ready for a change? Read PCT tomorrow to learn how to avoid these failures and ensure that your organization gets the desired results from your change efforts.

Source: Charlyne Meinhard is a speaker, trainer and chief results officer of Next Level Consulting, a consulting firm specializing in change leadership, talent development and innovation. With more than 20 years of experience, she inspires and teaches managers to lead successful changes in organizations such as Verizon and SunTrust. She is also the author of Change Agents to the Rescue! and Ahead of Change.