Build Change Capability using a Change Coach

 Most organizations (70%) experience change implementation problems and delays due to a lack of effective, internal change management skills and capability.  Current approaches to rolling out change by  communicating the reasons for and providing technical training are no longer enough.  People want more information, involvement and in-depth skill building.    

The short-term response is to assign someone to be the Change Lead and send them off for 3 or 4 days of change management certification training.  When they get back  with a binder full of information and a lot of enthusiasm it quickly becomes apparent that they lack the experience they need to plan and support a major organizational change initiative.  

In our experience, a Change Management Coach is a cost effective way to help Change Sponsors, Leaders and internal Advisors to implement a business critical change.  Our coaches assess the situation and develop a plan for building on the current knowledge and strengths of your people.  The goal is provide new ideas about how to remove barriers and implement change that you apply and learn to do.  

The Change Lead does the hands-on work of assessing Organizational Change Readiness, advising Sr. Management, creating Change Plans, involving impacted Department Managers, leading the Change Champion Network, facilitating employee engagement sessions and more, while the Change Coach provides key guidelines, tips and best practice suggestions.  

Our role is to facilitate learning at each stage of the change process and work the internal Change Lead to determine what to do next.  We apply an experiential learning model (Kolb) as we continual go from understanding how key change concepts apply to their experience to assessing best practice strategies and tools to develop a next steps action plan.   It feels like a team effort with the HR Change Lead leading the change effort while the Change Coach guides and supports them at each step in the process.

By combining the learning of change methods and working on a real-time change effort, we are able to accelerate their learning.   Not only did the project do well but the Change Lead learned what it takes to effectively lead the change effort for a major project.  In the end the results were amazing.  Employee willingness to engage went steadily up and HR learned from the experience.  

The experience enabled them to tackle the next project mostly on their own. The organization was successful in building the capability they needed with minimal outside help and expense.  Would a Change Coach help your organization build capacity while ensuring the success of a business critical change?