Effective Change - The 5 Critical Factors for Success

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

Winston Churchill

With the start of a new year it’s appropriate to reflect on change and its importance to our role as leaders. What circumstances do we anticipate in the coming year that will require strategies to address change? Have we laid the groundwork in our organizations to successfully facilitate change?

Many people talk about change and change management without fully appreciating the complexities and full spectrum of considerations involved in successful change or transformation. While effective change methodologies and processes are important, they won’t succeed in bringing about effective and lasting change, if the basic fundamentals, or critical success factors are not in place.

Complexities aside, here are my 5 critical factors for successful change. Have these in place and you are ‎almost certain to have success.

1. Trust – this is the number one factor for the simple reason that if it is absent you will have an uphill grind to successfully implementing change. In his best selling book “The Speed of Trust”, Stephen M.R. Covey (son of the late Stephen R. Covey) does a masterful job articulating why trust is so fundamental to our success as leaders. As a public sector leader, one experience particularly stands out. Eight years ago I took on the role of leading a provincial government branch that had a very low trust relationship with its largest stakeholder group – the police. Rebuilding trust with this important group was foundational to subsequently implementing (successfully) a major change agenda.

Trust is intimately connected with the next four factors. If you don’t have trust in place, individually as a leader or collectively as an organization, don’t consider embarking on a change agenda before this factor is addressed. Good news – trust can be reestablished/developed (see book referenced above).

2. Shared Purpose – developing a shared purpose or change imperative (the why) is a powerful element in any transformation or change endeavor. Many change professionals often put this as number one on their list. A strong shared purpose is important on a number of levels. John Kotter in his well-known book “Leading Change” felt so strongly about the importance of shared purpose he advocated creating a visible crisis to bring about commitment to change and shared purpose. I personally don’t subscribe to an approach where a crisis is created (see Trust above). There are however, numerous opportunities, or real events, that can be used to develop a shared purpose without engineering a crisis. Although it is difficult to do this point justice in a few words, having a solid shared purpose is invaluable at the outset of a change initiative. By creating a sense of urgency, shared purpose unites employees and stakeholders, and provides the energy that helps to sustain the change initiative through the often-difficult transition period. Successful change takes an enormous amount of energy and resolve on the part of many individuals and groups. A strong shared purpose is the lifeblood that feeds this energy and resolve.

3. Engagement – sometimes the best change management isn’t actually change management at all – it’s engaging and empowering those closest to problems to become contributors to the change solution. When people feel they are valued and are given the opportunity to become part of the solution, people change management becomes largely redundant. Daniel Markovitz in an HBR blog post (No One Likes to be Changed) went so far as to propose that we could dispense with the concept of change management entirely if we effectively involve those (workers) closest to problems in the design of solutions. Engaging and empowering those most impacted by the change at the conceptual level is ideal, however, where this in not feasible (or the time has passed for this opportunity), engaging key individuals and groups as early as possible, and throughout the change initiative is critical to success.

4. Capacity & Capability – change cannot be implemented without strong people capacity and capability. Change involves a lot of hard work sustained over many months and sometimes years. Many change initiatives fail to meet expectations under the pressures of budget constraints or turnover of key individuals. This risk is especially significant for large transformational change initiatives that are implemented over multiple years. Building and retaining capacity and capability is foundational to successful change. Having appropriate capacity and capability will be easier if you have established trust, shared purpose, and solid engagement. With these three in place your change initiative will attract talent and support from your key stakeholders, and will be better able to insulate itself from risks factors such as budget cuts and turnover.

One multi-year initiative that I championed was greatly assisted by having the ability to tap into stakeholder organizations for capacity and capability during critical periods of the initiative. Remember a well thought through change initiative that has established commitment, through engagement and shared purpose, has the ability to leverage resources beyond your organization.

5. Leadership Commitment – last but by no means least of the 5 critical success factors is leadership commitment. As a leader and champion, if you are not wholly 100% committed and invested in the change initiative, personally and professionally, you simply can’t expect to inspire and motivate others. Research literature on change is filled with examples of spectacular successes and equally spectacular failures that rest on leadership commitment. Leaders of successful change have the ability to communicate the vision, demonstrate passion, build momentum, solve problems, and overcome resistance. These leaders empower others, work across organizational boundaries and engage their stakeholders. Perhaps most importantly, they don’t let up!