Becoming an Effective Change Leader

ASQ’s June Influential Voices Roundtable asks the question: How can an individual become a successful Change Leader?

Change leadership is defined as the ability to influence and enthuse others through personal advocacy, vision and drive, and to access resources to build a solid platform for change (Higgs and Rowland, 2000).

Change Leadership Process schematic by KnowledgeBrief (KBM)

 

The Baldrige Criteria defines change management as a leadership-induced process that involves transformational organizational change that leadership controls and sustains. It requires dedication, involvement of employees at all levels, and constant communication. Transformational change is strategy-driven and stems from the top of the organization. Its origin may be from needs identified within the organization and it requires active engagement of the whole organization.

McKinsey & Company states that, “Change management as it is traditionally applied is outdated. 70 percent of change programs fail to achieve their goals, largely due to employee resistance and lack of management support. We also know that when people are truly invested in change it is 30 percent more likely to stick.”

My 35+ years of experience is that the effective change leader possesses 3 critical skills:

• Communication
• Facilitation
• Project management

The effective change leader must be able to communicate a compelling business case for change and a clear call to action throughout the organization: up, down and across. The change effort should be in alignment with the organization's vision, values and strategic plan. The change initiative must be communicated regularly with a clearly understood strategy, with action plans and key metrics that are cascaded and deployed down to each department and individual. Change progress must be consistently measured and frequently reported against the established goals or targets.

The effective change leader demonstrates strong facilitation, influence and collaboration skills necessary to build support, remove barriers and reduce resistance to change. The change leader must be able to enhance/ build the Systems & Structures necessary to drive the required change, reward desired behaviors and prevent organizational backsliding. The effective change leader identifies the key stakeholders and implements influence strategies to gain their support in helping to "model the behaviors that create the experiences needed to change beliefs resulting in actions that deliver expected results" (The Oz Principle: Culture of Accountability). An all-too-often over-looked influencer is the organization's "Keyhub" - those employees not part of the official managerial org chart, but whose experience/opinion/ insight is highly sought and respected among his/her peers, colleagues and subordinates. The identification of and collaboration with the keyhub is an important networking strategy to help lead successful change efforts in any organization.

The effective change leader must be able to marshal the resources and competencies necessary to support the change, adapt to challenges, and keep the change project on schedule and in budget. The change leader should follow a formalized change strategy or framework incorporating the methods, tools and technical assistance necessary to lead the process and coach the people through change. Three common models of a change management process are:

• The Change Management 101 Model
• GE Change Acceleration Process
• Kotter 8-Step Change Model

In conclusion, I offer the following three inspirational quotes befitting the effective change leader.

"It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory." ~W.Edwards Deming

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change." ~Charles Darwin

"Never mistake motion for action. Motion produces activity. Action produces results. The distinction between motion and action underscores the need to have people assume accountability for producing results." ~Ernest Hemingway

Best Practices in End-to-End Supply Chain

The latest ASQ CEO blog post asks "what are some best practices for planning and implementing  [E2E] Supply Chain to ensure success?"

Investopedia defines an E2E SCP as, "...a term used to describe products or solutions that cover every stage in a particular process, often without any need for anything to be supplied by a third party. It also embraces a philosophy that eliminates as many middle layers or steps as possible to optimize performance and efficiency in any process."

E2E Supply Chain graphic via LeanCorp.com

Traditional supply chains involve individual organizational silos that often result in inefficient overall performance and constrained supplier relationships. An end-to-end view of the complete supply chain begins with product design, supplier selection and management, then scheduling, production, distribution, and should include after-sale customer service. A holistic E2E Supply Chain integrates all revenue and expense streams. Effective E2E Supply Chains enable disruptive innovations in customer experience by delivering greater visibility of product design & performance and manufacturing capabilities, as well as order management and inventory status.

Building an effective E2E Supply Chain requires the implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system that bundles top-level business processes such as Concept-to-Launch, Procure-to-Pay and Order-to-Cash functions as well as Hire-to-Retire and Sustain-and-Retain human capital asset management processes to present a holistic view of supply chain operations, while improving organizational strategic planning & deployment, decision-making, workforce planning and overall business growth.

Best Practices in E2E Supply Chains:

• Inventory Management via Lean principles to eliminate waste (including unnecessary inventory) and reduce non value-added activities thereby reducing lead times and order fulfillment errors, resulting in improved customer perceptions of organizational responsiveness. 
• Customer Demand Planning that uses the customers' order history, market analysis, seasonality, competitive landscape, and other factors to understand your customer needs better than they do enabling a more stable and predictable planning process.
• Human Capital asset planning and management that assesses current workforce capability and capacity in response to strategic plans, focusing on the organization's core competencies and strategic advantages.  
• A Lean Management System deploying data-driven root cause analysis where everyone from the CEO down to the intern is a problem solver, coupled with stronger supplier & vendor collaboration can strengthen an organization’s ability to plan effectively and respond to changes with greater agility.

Superior network connectivity between the supplier - manufacturer - customer can be a distinct competitive advantage to building strong business relationships. Working within and across the network to improve quality, service and cost at all touch points is a winning formula to help assure business success.