Turn your People Leaders into Change Makers
“Change programs succeed and fail because of leadership.”
Your People Leader (or direct manager) is the most trusted source of information and influence to team members – so they play a spectacularly important role in change. And yet, while there’s so much expected of them, they’re rarely invested in to bolster their capabilities and resilience to deliver what’s required.
What if you could mobilise your managers and employees to lead transformational change that lasts?
In a rapidly changing and complex environment, your change leadership capability must stay in step. What got your organisation to where it is won’t get it to where it must go.
That’s why Blue Seed has developed the Change Intelligence for Change Makers learning program. This practical, experiential and fun program will power up leadership capabilities and transformational mindsets for People Leaders who are responsible for business change outcomes.
Learn and apply techniques to lift Change Intelligence
Change intelligence or ‘CQ’ is the ability to lead through disruption applying a unique way of thinking (wisdom and curiosity), acting (strategic, practical and sustainable) and being (adaptable, inclusive, courageous).
CQ turns people leaders into change makers, equipping them to lead themselves and their teams confidently through constant change.
Through this dynamic program, people leaders will be able to:
- Reframe change leader mindset so they can lead themselves in and through change.
- Put change in motion and make it stick.
- Lift change engagement and communication capability, advocating for and on behalf of the change.
When your organisation is facing change, where do you focus your attention?
You focus on the area that needs changing, right? Well if that was your answer, then you’re in agreement with most. This focus in on what’s traditionally called the ‘receivers of change’, that is, those people who experience the change – the impacted frontline sales, service or support staff. This change approach is structured, one-way and passive – to lead the ‘receivers’ through the change near the end of the process or lifecycle.
While supporting these receivers IS a critical success factor, experience tells us that success is largely determined well before these teams are impacted. And we wonder why 70% of companies fail when they try to change?
We prefer to put these critical ‘change makers’ at the front and centre of our approach, with them initiating, shaping, translating and landing change solidly on its feet, for sustained business outcomes. We call them the most critical ‘beneficiaries’ of change!
But more on them in a moment. First, let’s consider the change intelligent organisation system, and how we define the Change Leadership roles within it:
Change Architects: the executives who sponsor, fund and make the decision to initiate change. They usually imagine the solution or target state with the help of expert strategy or technology advisers (or increasingly with their own team members! J). Change architects can also be delegates and advisers of the sponsor who provide input into governance committees and ‘guiding coalitions’ that steer the program.
Change Enablers: these are the designers and builders of change, often regarded as ‘the project team’ and this group includes: change managers, project managers, business analysts, technology solution designers, builders, testers and a variety of subject matter experts. Their work includes the detailed design, build and testing of solutions (in rapid bursts or over more extended periods) to defined scope, timelines and quality standards. And done in such a way that the business can absorb the solution effectively.
Change Makers: people leaders who have supervisory relationships with frontline, customer-facing teams. They are often regional or functional business unit leaders and play the role of ‘change translator’ for teams that are impacted by change.
They are responsible for turning the Change Architect’s strategy and the Enabler’s prepared solution into an operational reality by translating, communicating and supporting their teams. It’s up to them to ensure the change is embraced, adopted and utilised as intended by the organisation and its people.
So where do you focus attention in YOUR change system?
We choose the Change Makers – the leaders and the managers of your frontline teams. Change is either made or broken with them. That’s why at Blue Seed we call this critical group the Change Makers, not passive change receivers. It is through these people leaders, the Change Makers, that we stand a chance of generating a greater (and faster) rate of change success so that more business value is realised from strategic change investments.
Indeed, the level of their Change Intelligence should be of paramount concern – after all, they help design, deliver and sustain change.
As a recent HBR article suggests “Cultural changes cannot happen without leadership, and efforts to change culture are the crucible in which leadership is developed. True leadership involves deviating from cultural expectations in ways that inspire others to choose to follow.”
This complexity emphasises the need for a coherent force to align all parts. At Blue Seed we believe all these change leaders must deeply understand and ‘live’ change leadership from multiple perspectives, including the business strategy from which the change was born. Not just for best possible delivery success, but also to boost the long-term change capability of the organisation.
Check out this short video that underpins the importance of Change Leadership in our current business context.
So how do you create change that lasts? You focus on creating Change Intelligent leaders that will ultimately lead to a more change-capable organisation, rather than simply delivering another change program.
And you will save time and dollars by starting with your Change Makers.
Our purpose is to make transformational change achievable and create a lasting capability for our clients. Our unique approach empowers organisations to create the best return on investment for their change efforts.
We’ve seen that the sooner an organisation is willing to identify and address its (human) change capability needs and gaps in detail, the quicker it will be likely to reap the rewards.