Embarking on a Head of Change Management role or considering appointing one?
Blue Seed Consulting’s comprehensive insights, derived from interviews and extensive experience across diverse sectors are presented here as a roadmap to help you make a lasting impact within your first year. Navigate the terrain of your organisational change efforts with confidence using this 18-step guide.
Laying the Foundation
1. Immersive Analysis: Dive into the organisation’s culture, values, and change history. Understand core values and engage in initial discussions to gauge perceptions of change.
2. Start Mapping Change: Explore ongoing initiatives, align them with the organisational vision, and identify synergy opportunities. Address pockets of resistance and define the change landscape.
3. Stakeholder Engagement: Initiate conversations with key stakeholders at all levels. Build relationships, listen to concerns and begin sharing your early observations on the transformation journey.
Momentum Building
4. Quick Wins: Leverage your understanding of the organisation to identify areas for quick wins within transformation efforts. Develop strategies to secure early successes, cultivating a change-embracing culture.
5. Change Framework Design: Review or design a comprehensive change management framework. Balance your imprint with strengths in any existing frameworks, focusing on resistance mitigation and tailored approaches.
6. Plant Change Seeds: Establish cross-functional change catalysts to drive grassroots change. Empower them to champion transformation within their domains.
Strategic Foundations
7. Craft the Change Story: Develop and test a compelling change narrative that addresses uncertainties and emphasizes the “why” behind each transformation.
8. Transformation Roadmap Refinement: Collaborate with cross-functional teams to refine the roadmap. Emphasise interconnections, sequencing, and using the single view of change for decision-making.
9. Strengthen Change Leadership: Launch a comprehensive program to enhance change leadership capacity across the organisation. Partner with People and culture teams to reinforce change leadership metrics.
Beyond the First 90 Days:
Nurturing and Scaling
10. Metrics Implementation: Establish a robust change performance measurement system, tracking qualitative and quantitative indicators of change success.
11. Big Picture Cultural Alignment: Look beyond the details and align the overall organisational culture with transformation efforts.
12. Nurturing Change Ambassadors: Cultivate the network of change ambassadors to champion transformation at every level. Provide platforms for sharing best practices.
13. Impact Assessment and Adjustment: Evaluate change impact on performance metrics, engagement and satisfaction. Fine-tune strategies based on insights.
14. Continuous Learning Platforms: Create learning avenues for change management methodologies, fostering knowledge sharing across the organisation.
15. Resilience vs. Agility: Develop a culture of organisational resilience balanced with agility to navigate shifts while focusing on long-term goals.
16. Celebrate Change Champions: Recognize individuals and teams demonstrating commitment to change. Reinforce change leadership and motivation.
17. Legacy Integration: Weave successful change outcomes into the organisation’s fabric, making new practices the standard.
18. Reflect and Reframe: Conclude the year by reflecting on lessons learned, successes, and challenges. Use insights to reframe strategies for the next phase.
About Blue Seed Consulting
Blue Seed is an organisational change consultancy that focuses on enabling the people side of business transformation – making workplaces work better. We deliver exceptional and lasting outcomes for emerging, disrupted and transforming companies.
When you work with Blue Seed Consulting you’ll develop the organisational and individual change capabilities you need faster and they’ll be sustainable. That’s because we know what it takes to adapt and change, and we intentionally represent those attributes and skills every day, making capability transfer a natural part of the process. Our Change Maturity Assessment, CQ Change Leadership Training and Change by Design Play Book are just a few of the ways we can support your organisation.