There are times when a company, facing a slow bleed of market share, will recognize the need to adjust their strategy. The manner in which this corporate change is handled can vary dramatically from company to company. In some instances, a strategy team can be assembled internally to examine the causes of the lost market share. This can be a problematic scenario. It can be difficult or impossible, particularly when careers are on the line in a poor economy, to inform superiors that the problem rests with their plans. When in-house teams are deemed to be the inappropriate choice, an alternative course of action can be to use the services of a strategy development firm to structure the needed corporate change. In essence, strategy development firms offer to analyze what a company is doing. They can assess the products or services the corporation offers, to whom the products or services are being marketed, and how those products or services are being received. After conducting that analysis, the strategy firm will develop a new corporate strategy based on the information they gathered. This can mean a corporate change as simple as tweaking the marketing to overhauling delivery services. A simple example might be that a company is offering IT services but aiming its marketing primarily at small businesses that lack the capital to retain those IT services. A strategy development firm might come back and advise that the marketing be adjusted to target companies making more than a million dollars a year. It should be noted, however, that strategy development firms are not typically experts in implementing change. The services they offer focus on creating an overall strategy. The assessment they return may include two dozen steps that should be taken to achieve the strategy, but th
ose steps could involve two dozen change initiatives that the strategy firm has not outlined. For those involved in corporate change, it is best to prime the pump with upper management about what the strategy firm is actually providing versus what it might entail before receiving the final assessment.Organisation Change - Subject Matter Experts and What They Bring To Business Change
Organisation change is a marriage between effective change management and technical expertise. Still, there might be times when a change expert would want to get the input of a subject matter expert, only to meet some objection. The change expert might hear a question like: We've got you, what use would the subject matter expert be to us?” If a situation like this happens, what the change expert needs to do is to make a clear contrast between their own expertise, which is change, and the expertise of the subject matter expert. This may mean explaining just what it is that the subject matter expert brings to the table.A subject matter expert is the person who is an expert in the minutia of the business. They are usually highly experienced in the business, have outstanding credentials, and they have a keen sense of intuition about the business. During organisation change, this is a very important skill to have. A subject matter expert can vet a change initiative for the technical details involved with the proposed change. This examination process is their most vital role.
Due to overeagerness of the change team, there are times when they will just come up with a change project, develop it, and launch it without properly consulting a subject matter expert about the technical details. The change experts then take this project proposal to the upper management for approval. The thing is, the higher management will usually not even ask if the proposal has been vetted already for technical issues. It's quite possible that they will just assume that the change team has already done their job and had the project checked by a subject matter expert. So they approve the project proposal. The process for organisation change moves along only to fail in the end because of a technical detail that wasn't taken into account.
To avoid this result, it's best to have a subject matter expert on hand for organisation change. They are experienced with the business and will pinpoint and deal with the technical problems of the business change proposal. More importantly, even if there is a problem with a technical aspect of the proposal, the subject matter expert will be intimately familiar with the technology involved and probably be able to offer a simple solution.
Organisation Change - The Role Of Change Agents And Establishing Balance in Leadership
Ideally, there are already the three major types of leadership present, when a change agent finally decides to attempt organisation change. A waterwalker will be at the forefront of the company. There will be bridgebuilders in place to translate the vision into something that can be executed. There will be the truck driver leadership in place to carry out the tangible details of the plans. This situation is ideal, but it's rarely seen in today's corporate world.In most organisation change situations, the change agent will find the leadership situation is out of balance. There will be a gap in one of the types of leadership, an overabundance of one type of leadership, or both. This type of situation is relatively common in companies that are generally stable. In these instances, visionary leadership can become unnecessary. There's no goal to reach because the company is not undergoing progressive changes. Without the vision of a waterwalker, the role of the bridgebuilder is undermined as well. With the truck driver leadership mentality, only incremental changes are needed to stay in the competition, that's why this type of leadership predominates.
However, no company will remain stable forever. World events and the changes in the corporate marketplace can always catch up with stable companies and pressure them towards organisation change. For the change agent, this situation poses a special challenge. Without the waterwalkers and bridgebuilders, it's up to them to come up with ways to make changes that is acceptable to leadership that is not necessarily comfortable with big, quick changes.
The use of innovative changes will be key in fostering readiness for innovative change in this situation. The business change agent's role in this is to create ways to develop the organisation change project in such a way that it is presented in small, little steps. Then each step needs to be required and inexorable. This is for the purpose of setting up the company and preparing leadership for an inevitable change that comes from smaller evolutionary changes.
Organization Change - Choosing The Right Subject Matter Expert For Business Change
The process of organization change is always difficult. It requires the consistent effort of a dedicated change team, support from upper management, and conscientious planning. However, organization change is about the alteration of a specific kind of business. The details of a retail clothing business are going to be profoundly different from the details of a boat manufacturing business. There needs to be someone on the team who understands change, but there also needs to be someone on the team that understands the technical details of the business. The important and urgent question becomes, who should assume the role of the subject matter expert?
With this situation, there is a temptation to resort to resumes. A resume is a summary of a person's qualifications and work experience, after all. This is unfortunate, because resumes are generally a poor indicator of the real subject matter expertise of a person needed for organization change, in spite of all the focus given to them in business. Like for instance, if you compare two resumes, and both people have the same years of experience and education in the subject, then either of them can be a good subject matter expert, right? But let's say, the first candidate has only been working through the motions enough to be called an expert while the second candidate has been very attached and passionate about the business since the first day. Given the choice between them, most change teams would rather have candidate B.
To get a candidate B on board with an business change means looking beyond resumes and getting personal. You can ask around in the office for people who have technical expertise and business sense. This should not be a cause of concern. It is this subject matter expert that will be known for being the expert. These people do not only have skills and credentials, they also offer a keen business intuition gleaned from over the years. They can and will offer from the gut recommendations without feeling compelled to write down a formula. Getting this person on board to be the technical expert for an organization change will almost assure that the project won’t get hung up over a technical detail.
