Change Content Selection: Total Place, Booz Allen 2.0 (again) and change with fun

This week:

• Managing the Transition (of british public service) to Total Place: on PublicNet, the UK public service community website, a look at the new major initiative launched in the Treasury's Operational Efficiency Programme. Total Place is designed to map, analyse and eventually improve the way public money is spent in a selected area. More power to communities and more collaboration between public service bodies are the levers of this massive change. The initiative was launched in April 2009 with 13 pilot projects that have apparently given satisfying results. However, according to PublicNet, the roll-out could turn out to be more challenging if a change management strategy is not put in place allowing people to get on board.

• Implementing Enterprise 2.0 at Booz Allen:  I already mentioned here the way Booz Allen massively invested in change management efforts to successfully implement its Enterprise 2.0 model. The FastForward Blog gives a more detailed look at the journey undertaken by the firm. We learn that the project team was populated with as many change management people as technical ones. We learn that the group of early adopters were specifically targeted for their ability to positively influence the rest of the organisation. A couple of the many reasons why the initiative lead to a success. 

• A bit of fun to finish: the new VW campaign, The Fun Theory, tells us that behaviours can be changed for the better (and for the "greener") not through complex change management models but simply through FUN. I find the thought refreshing, although I can't help thinking: is fun enough for sustainable change? Below one of the 3 campaign ads

Enjoy! All Change Content Selections here

Change Articles, This Week's Selection

My pick of this weeks change leadership related web content:

• GM: cultural changes are apparently under way according to this article from the Detroit Free Press. A less formal dress code, "dress appropriately", has been decided to encourage personal decision-making; it's probably a good initiative when you think that one person called HR 2 or 3 times to ask if he could wear jeans! Other changes include new names for conference rooms such as "groovy room" or "zen room" apparently to encourage risk-taking. One wonders though whether there is real change beyond the cosmetical side of these new decisions? Yes, according to Susan Docherty, VP of US Sales, who describes how the decision to cancel a new product after bad initial customer feedback, was taken fast by a small number of top executives.
• 3M: On Paul Williams' excellent innovation blog, which I've already mentioned, an interesting insider look at 3M's innovation story and its 6 pillars of innovation: R&D, Corporate Culture, Diversified Technologies, Networking, Recognition, Measurement, Connection to the Customer. What I like about these pillars is the way they cover a wide range of technological, management and more human aspects of business

Other selection of articles here

Cost Benefit of Change Management

I recently  had the pleasure to meet Lizette Tucker from US based firm Arrowhead Strategic Consultants in Paris. Lizette is looking to expand her business in France, as she seems to like our country very much. I did warn her that the initial enthusiasm may fade away as she slowly discovers the downsides of our country: in other words she may go through a steep change curve!

Our conversation turned around a recurrent theme for change managers: the challenge of conducting a good change management cost benefit analysis. For example, how can we quantify the benefits of turning initially resistant people into an engaged force? The task is not too difficult if a change management program is the one and unique answer to a business problem: if for example a program is carried out to change the behaviours of plant personnel to improve safety, then you would just take the usual safety performance indicators as a measure of success. 

It becomes however more difficult if change management is only one part of a global program for example in a merger or an ERP implementation. How can you then precisely quantify the contribution of change management to the overall results of the program? Lizette has been working on a cost benefit analysis tool, currently under test, that should be able to help us answering this question. 

Until then, here are a few key benefits I usually like to stress out:

• Avoid bad surprises: anticipate, understand resistance to change, and therefore prevent it from causing damage at the wrong time and jeopardising the project.
• Help building momentum: by installing a sense of urgency to change and giving people responsibilities, opportunities to take ownership of the change. The result is that they will start taking their own initiatives that will install the change, initiatives that the change leaders wouldn't have thought about themselves 
• Develop a know-how: engaging, empowering, explaining, listening, adapting; all of which are actions that, done over and over again change after change, will enable the organisation to change faster, naturally. 

Implementing a sustainable development initiative

I'd like to share with you a few slides which purpose is to give some hints for successfully implementing a sustainable development initiative, viewed from a behavioural change angle. Acting "greener" is something relevant to many of us (it should even be all of us) and is very much about how we can install new behaviours. I'd be very interested in your (constructive) feedback and comments. 

Sustainable development Initiative

View more presentations from Christophe Lastennet.

Enterprise 2.0: Booz Allen Hamilton's Case

The Blogue Marketing Interactif, from Quebec, features an article about how Booz Allen Hamilton successfully implemented its Enterprise 2.0 solution. The case was presented at the Montreal Webcom 09 conference by Walton Smith . The key learning for businesses interested in implementing new collaborative solutions is that not less than 50% of the budget was spent on change management. That includes:

• Tool training with demos and hands-on activities
• Incentivising usage: the tools bring recognition to main contributers
• Tracking adoption metric and other relevant indicators
• Identifying and reporting benefits

In other words: involvement, competencies, business alignment and performance management. 

Click here to view full post by Sandrine Prom Tep

Change Management TOP 5 leadership competency of tomorrow

The Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) just published the outcome of a survey conducted among Fortune 1000 companies to identify the Top 5 leadership competencies of tomorrow. Respondents were asked to write in the top five words or phrases that came to mind to describe the leadership competencies they perceive will be critical in the future. This is what came out (for some strange reason, only 4 headings are listed, 5 though if you count leadership agility and flexibility as separate items). 


Leadership agility and flexibility

"Tomorrow's leaders will need to be able to manage on the fly," says Kevin Oakes, CEO of i4cp. "Not only will they need to be mentally agile and flexible, they'll need to instill those qualities in others, even while keeping things from becoming chaotic. I picture them as excellent business athletes."

Innovation

Another of the top five competencies is innovation. "Innovation is, in fact, one way to stay agile," notes Oakes. "You react to changes in the business environment by doing things differently and by quickly inventing new products and services that help you gain a competitive advantage."

Communication

In an environment where the world is awash in social media and instant messaging, leaders will need to be exceptional communicators, able to cut through the morass of information overload with well-honed messaging.

Change management

The critical nature of change management is highlighted not only in the write-ins but in other parts of the i4cp study as well. When i4cp asked about the degree to which organizations emphasize certain management competencies, it found that the more that organizations stress change management skills, the higher they score on i4cp's Leadership Success Index.

"From this perspective, the future is already here," notes Oakes. "Change management skills will not only be needed for the future, they're paying dividends now."
Read other surveys about change here

Selection of Recent Change Articles

Here is my pick of recent change management articles and interviews :

Managing Change in the Creative Industries, by Nathalie Harrison, Senior Business Consultant, Sony Professional.

the media industry is one sector that has experienced record levels of change and faces some unique challenges when it comes to change management: new markets such as 3D, TV for mobiles and IPTV; consolidation of content providers, distributors and aggregators; fragmentation of audiences; new outsourcing models; the re-location of broadcast and other facilities; and a decline in commercial and public broadcasting revenues. The media industry is basically redefining its business model.

However, in media organisations maintaining a culture of creativity and innovation is critical to successful change; characteristics that can be threatened by increased processes. A common pitfall in technology intensive change programs is to neglect the people side of it and according to Nathalie Harrison, this has been the case for the media industry. She comes up with a list of top ten tips for managing change in the creative industries:

1. Agree the business case before taking the change programme forward

2. Understand the number of stakeholders involved in the programme and, more importantly, who is responsible for sign off

3. Make the change process consultative and encourage the participation of those affected by the change

4. Ensure that there is a steady flow of information into the business and that the style of communication is right for the audience

5. Remember to nurture your staff

6. Ensure that change happens locally

7. Anticipate the behavioural changes required to make the change successful

8. Put measurements for success in place in advance

9. Make sure that the technology works first time

10. Don’t be tempted to start on your next change programme until the first is embedded and you have measured its success

All of the above definately apply for any context and industry sector

Other articles and interviews worth reading include:

Why companies fail, by Gary Hamel on his excellent blog. His answers:

- First gravity wins. As companies grow ever bigger, their growing weight makes lasting performance more and more challenging

- Second, strategies die. The need for a company to redefine its strategy on a regular basis

- Third, change happens. The complexity of adapting to an ever changing environment

Change is hardest in the middle, by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business blogger.

Passed the project kick-off excitement, how to keep the change momentum going? Her tips for change leaders:

- Tune into the environment

- Check the vision

- Test support

- Examine progress.

- Search for synergies

Good reading!

What Makes Change Easy or Difficult to Implement? Determining the Change Capacity

With a success rate for change initiatives as low as 30%, you may say there is no such thing as an easy change to implement. The assumption is certainly a good one to have to make sure you don't underestimate your change management efforts required. Some changes prove to be more difficult than others to implement. It can be because of the nature of the change, its depth, the context, the way it is managed and the level of preparation.

As soon as the vision of the change becomes clear, several questions typically arise for the change leader: can I make this happen? What problems can I expect and how will I solve them? Will people resist? What will help me through the journey? To start drawing a clear picture of what lies ahead, there are 4 parameters, you ,as a change leader, need to assess:

1. SF: the Strategic Fit of the change vision. In other words will the change support your company strategy? If the answer is yes, you will most likely be able to count on senior support and be able to remove barriers more easily. If the answer is no, the sustainability of the change will be jeopardised from day1.
2. SA: the Attractiveness of the change to its Stakeholders. The vision of a future that looks much brighter than present is clearly a strong motivational factor. What about redundancy programs or other changes looking initially negative? Resistance can be neutralised with this sort of programs if you make things clear from the start. Clarity is the first step to attractiveness. The attractiveness will also be different to the various stakeholder groups, which is why a global view is needed.
3. HI: Human Impact. What are likely to be the human consequences of the change and what efforts will be needed? I am talking about training, behaviours, culture and basically anything that means people will be impacted. A big human impact, like a major cultural change means a more challenging change to implement than having to train a certain population on a new software.
4. OI: Organisational Impact. To what extent will our processes, systems (management and information), organisational structure, have to be modified? New formal mechanisms take time to put in place and function properly. They represent a key factor to achieve behavioural change. Again, the larger the OI, the more challenging the implementation of the change.

These 4 parameters are the ingredients that will enable you to assess your change capacity, by definition the success potential of the change. The recipe comes next:

Change Capacity = SF x SA / (HI + OI)

What does it mean? This formula is meant to stress a few things:

• The higher the strategic compatibility of the change and its attractiveness, the higher the potential for success.
• A change that is totally incompatible with the strategy (SF=0) or totally unattractive (SA=0) has no chance to succeed
• The lesser the impact of the change, whether it be human or organisational, the higher the capacity to make it happen
• Changes with large organisational and human impact do not jeopardise your capacity to make it a success as long as their attractiveness and strategic fit remain high.

Assessing your change capacity will help you know where you stand before the beginning of the change journey. It may also help you finding the right depth of the change by comparing different change capacity results for different depths: for what change depth will the results expected, and therefore the stakeholder attractiveness most outweigh the efforts required by the impact?

How can I practically assess my change capacity? As a change leader, thinking yourself about these 4 factors and discussing them with other people involved will give you a sense of your initiative's success potential. A more thorough way of performing the assessment is by using a tool that will:

- assess each factor through a specific set of questions aimed at various stakeholders

- consolidate and quantify each factor

- determine the resulting change capacity index and benchmark it

Doing this exercise will help you prepare the journey. Preparation, as we know, is a large part of future success.

For more information about the change capacity formula, index and tool please contact me

Strategic questions before initiating change

Guest Author: Stephen Warrilow

Before starting out on your change management initiative - some strategic questions to ask yourself. This list is not exhaustive but is intended as an aide-memoire to kick start your thought processes and to help you avoid the 70% failure rate.

(1) Have you thoroughly addressed the originating strategic review questions?

- Where have we come from?

- Where are we now?

- Where do we want to be?

(2) What is your vision for the changed company?

- How is this communicated to staff?

- Does your staff share this vision?

(3) How would you describe the company, its culture and core processes now - (key characteristics) - key issues (actions and behaviours) - major focus (areas of impact)?

- Have you defined some sort of cultural frameworks of your organisation - to show "this is what we look like"?

(4) What do you want the business to look like after everyone's changed - how will the specifics of the culture and core processes have changed?

- Where are the gaps between now and where you want to be?

- What steps are needed to close the gaps?

- What are the implications of this?

- Do you know the steps to be undertaken to get from: "where are we now" to "where we want to be"?

- Have you identified for each step, the implications, issues and exposures that have to be addressed to progress to the next step?

(5) How are you going to manage the transition?

- How will you know how you're doing?

- Have you analysed, categorised and prioritised the issues arising across all functional areas impacted by the transition?

- Are you using a structured methodology?

- Do you have the skills in-house to do this properly?

- Who is going to provide overall leadership and ultimate accountability for the initiative?

- Who is going to fulfil the role of day-to-day management of the initiative, its risks, issues, conflicts, priorities, communications, and ensuring delivery of the new capabilities?

- Who is going to fulfil the role of realising the benefits delivered by the change initiative?

(6) Do you have a clear blueprint that defines your organisation after the change?

- Is this Blueprint fully communicated to all staff?

- Is it going to be actively used in a structured manner to maintain focus throughout the duration of your change initiative?

(7) Do you have a clear definition and documentation for each specific benefit to be realised by this change?

(i.e. what is it and what difference will it make - where in organisation does it arise - how will its achievement be measured?)

- Have you documented what differences should be noticeable between now and the close of the change initiative?

- Do you have planned processes to put in place to ensure that these benefits are achieved?

- Do you have a mechanism for measuring the improvements arising from the realisation of each benefit?

- Are these benefits communicated to staff?

(8) Have you documented the "stakeholder map" all those who have an interest in the change? and specifically how the change will impact them?

- Have you analysed the impact of the programme on their area of interest and the likely issues that will arise?

(9) Do you have a two-way communication strategy? Does it work?

- What are the feedback mechanisms and processes that are actually going to make this a two-way communication process?

- What are the processes that will ensure that your people are informed about the use of their feedback to influence the change initiative?

- What are the processes that will raise awareness of the benefits and impacts of the Blueprint?

(10) Do you have an issues and risk management strategy (for the change)? Have you identified what can go wrong and put countermeasures in place?

- What are the processes that will ensure that it is enacted effectively?

- What are the processes that will ensure that it gives you early visibility of issues and risks?

For more on this - see here: "How to manage change - putting it all together"

About the Author: Stephen Warrilow, based in Bristol, works with companies across the UK providing specialist support to directors delivery significant change initiatives. Stephen has 25 years cross sector experience with 100+ companies in mid range corporate, larger SME and corporate environments. Stephen's services are specifically targeted at the non-expert director of 100 – 2000 employee organisations.

www.strategies-for-managing-change.com

Sustainable Change: Planning, Emotions, Ownership, Confidence and Clarity

"How can we ... free ourselves from our addiction to episodic change and move to a much more healthy habit of continuous business improvement?" is the very pertinent question asked by a senior BP executive, Fiona Macleod, at the recent Wharton Leadership Conference. Her thoughts on the subject are interesting as she has lead several major change initiatives including the restructuring of BP's european marketing business and more recently the US Convenience retail business.

From the full article describing Macleod's intervention, here is my pick of the most relevant:

Many change initiatives lack sustainability:

• New leaders are often more concerned with "making a big splash" than with following through on a long-term plan to monitor change and keep the program on track.
• Organizations often revert to old habits because employees do not understand why change is needed, or they lack the tools and training required to sustain the new approach
• Nothing changes because ownership of the change rests with an external team or consultants, rather than with the leaders responsible for running the business.

"As business leaders, we're very good at the rational part" of change: Identifying what's wrong and how to fix it. But the soft side of change management -- in terms of really engaging people -- is just as important. If people get it intellectually but don't get it emotionally, I don't believe the change will be sustained."

"Confidence is absolutely crucial in making change stick. If people are confident in their leadership, themselves and the business purpose, you are way more likely to get a change that is sustainable and actually turns into continuous improvement,"

"it's very easy to get addicted to the change pattern by not getting the change right in the first place, not making the tough calls or bold decisions up-front, maybe going for something half-way, and then allowing things to slip back."

And for leaders busy restructuring and planning lay-offs, read this as an advice:

"I put my winning, end-state organization in place from day one" rather than waiting to decide which employees would stay ... and which would leave," MacLeod stated. "We had people who knew they would be leaving in 18 months and they stayed motivated for the entire period because we had been very straight with them. People want and expect clarity from their leaders."

What kind of change specialist are you?

On his excellent blog, “think for a change”, Paul Williams is asking: “what kind of innovator are you?”, referring to all the innovation specialty areas one can think of such as R&D, innovation management, new product development etc.
Reading this article reminded me of how change management/leadership/facilitation is often seen as a vast, unclear and too conceptual business area, particularly by SME’s managers busy with practical and operational business issues. To quote an ex-colleague: “my dentist could say he is doing change management”. Yes this has to do with how to explain change management in the most simple and practical way, but also being able to break it down into distinctive niches.
Thinking the exercise might be beneficial for myself, here is what I would call an early imperfect an incomplete attempt on a Mindmeister mindmap. And because we have now entered the age of online collaboration, don’t be shy to edit the map yourself here

From this early version, it is already clear that change management involves a wide range of specialties and competencies. Developing and rolling out a communication plan is very different from analysing the organisational impact of a change. From this, 2 questions:

1. What is my line of change management expertise?
2. Where do I need partners?

The Irrational Side of Change Management

Image via Wikipedia

The McKinsey Quarterly published an excellent paper by Carolyn Aiken and Scott Keller, that explains why change management theory often doesn’t work just like that. The background to their work is a 2008 McKinsey survey confirming that the success rate of change programs remains stuck at around 30%, more than 10 years after John Kotter’s similar survey leading to his famous 8 step approach for leading change.
Aiken and Keller’s approach is not to challenge the widely accepted principles of change management but to look at what makes the theory successful or not, from a psychological angle. In other words, this isn’t about the right change management things to do; it is about how to do it right.
The base to their work is a McKinsey model suggesting that four basic conditions are necessary before employees will change their behaviour:

• a compelling story
• role modeling
• reinforcing mechanisms
• capability building

While the model makes perfect sense and is a good reflection of common change management theory, things can be quite different in practice as Aiken and Keller explain:
“The prescription is right, but rational managers who attempt to put the four conditions in place by applying “common sense” typically misdirect time and energy, create messages that miss the mark, and experience frustrating unintended consequences from their efforts to influence change. Why? Because when they implement the prescription, they disregard certain, sometimes irrational—but predictable—elements of human nature.”
From their research they have therefore identified nine insights into how human nature gets in the way of successfully applying the four basic conditions for behavioural change:

1. What motivates you doesn’t motivate most of your employees
2. You’re better off letting them write their own story
3. It takes a story with both + and – to create real energy
4. Leaders believe mistakenly that they already “are the change.”
5. “Influence leaders” aren’t a panacea for making change happen
6. Money is the most expensive way to motivate people
7. The process and the outcome have got to be fair
8. Employees are what they think, feel, and believe in
9. Good intentions aren’t enough

Each insight is described in details in Aiken and Keller's article. As simplistic as these 9 points may sound, I think they will help change leaders tremendously .
Access the full article here (free access through the Forbes website) and see other selections of change articles 

Change Management Top “HR Skill for Survival”

The well known UK based Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) conducted an online poll among its HR community to determine the most important “HR skills for survival”. More precisely, the respondents were asked to chose three competencies they believed were most important to establish the function's effectiveness and credibility in the organisation. The following results came out:
1. Effective management of change (46%)
2. Strategic thinking (44%)
3. Business knowledge (36%)

I am not surprised to see those 3 items on top of the list but, I have to say, am a little surprised to see change management coming out as number 1. This does however fit quite well with IBM’s Enterprise of the Future survey which key finding shows that businesses are being “bombarded by change”. HR managers will typically find themselves in the middle of the battlefield, trying to keep the link between ground troops and generals, sometimes a very difficult challenge during significant change initiatives.
More details about the survey here on the CIPD website.

The Enterprise of the Future

IBM has just published a new global survey among more than 1000 CEO’s to find out what the company of the future would look like. The findings highlight the growing importance of successful change management:

• Organisations are bombarded by change and many are struggling to keep up
• CEO’s view more demanding customers not as a threat but as an opportunity to differentiate
• Nearly all CEO’s are adapting their business models, two-thirds are implementing extensive innovations
• CEO’s are moving aggressively toward global business designs, deeply changing capabilities and partnering more extensively
• Financial outperformers are making bolder plays

Before reading those findings, I would certainly have expected something about the intensity of change, but not to a point where CEO’s claim to be bombarded by it. This is really striking.
From these findings, the study defines what the enterprise of the future will look like:

• Hungry for change
• Innovative beyond customer imagination
• Globally integrated
• Disruptive by nature
• Genuine, not just generous

In other words, businesses need to adopt a very proactive stance towards change and as IBM puts it in the study, the question leaders must ask themselves is: “Does your organisation have a healthy appetite for change?”

Roger Federer and the Need for Change

Image by KLINX via Flickr

As a true tennis fan, I have been following enthusiastically past year’s battles at the top of the tennis world, marked by the rise of Nadal and the fall of “King” Roger. From a strategy and change management perspective, Roger’s struggle is an interesting case to look at. I find it a perfect example of just how difficult although critical, change is for market leading organisations.
Having outrageously dominated his “market” for about 4 years, RF, like so many other market leaders, hasn’t felt the need of making any significant changes to his strategy; after all, playing and training this way is what brought him and kept him at the top, so why should he change? The problem is that in the mean time, competition has gained strengths. In particular, one key player from Spain, originally labelled as a “niche” clay court specialist, has managed to widen and deepen his capabilities while still retaining his core competency. Nadal has managed to transform his game to become more offensive and gain more advantage on hard courts and grass. He has been able to lead change in such a way that Federer hasn’t. There’s more bad news for Roger: the unexpected rise of a new British competitor who seems to have taken a clear advantage on him.
Most tennis commentators have been saying it for a couple of years now since the early signs of his fall appeared: Roger will have to change the way he thinks and acts tennis; they’ve been saying that his training sessions lack a game plan, unlike Nadal’s; they’ve been detecting signs of complacency. Yet despite his brilliance, talent and intelligence, Federer hasn’t changed. This just shows how difficult it is, and Roger, it seems, is only at stage 1: establishing the need for change.
Getting through that first stage often requires the help of an external party that will act as a mirror and come up with a sharp, critical and objective view of the situation. That party, probably consultants for an organisation or a coach for a person, will have to be confronting in such a way that their client will not only understand but really feel the need for change. Interestingly Federer doesn’t have any coach at the moment and is said to be discussing opportunities with John McEnroe. But there are also other ways to start changing: an extraordinary event that can somehow make you look at things differently. Federer will be father in a few months…
Related articles by Zemanta

• Roger Federer could join forces with John McEnroe to salvage winning form (telegraph.co.uk)

Web 2.0 expo in San Francisco

I have recently started to get acquainted with the reality of web 2.0, many thanks to Holger Nauheimer and his Change Management blog. Holger just went to the Web 2.0 expo in San Francisco and came out with the conclusions quoted below. Key learning seems to be that Web 2.0 will be changing profoundly the way organisations work and interact with their stakeholders:

So, what's your executive summary? Web 2.0 has become mainstream, at least in the US and in Asia (so it will be mainstream in Europe in 1-2 years). It is clear what are the standard applications of social media for organizations, governments and non-profit communities. The tools have pretty much matured, and all further development just gives the cream on top of what we have already. It is now time to go vertical, i.e. deepen the diffusion of social media in organizations and society. This is a change project for most organizations, and for administrations anyhow.Holger Nauheimer, Change Management Blog, Apr 2009

Change management needed to greening corporate travel

Changing our behaviours to reduce our carbon footprint is a key and sometimes difficult challenge for us individuals and businesses. Air travel represents 2% of the world's total CO2 emissions, which may seem insignificant at first but is in fact a lot if you compare it with cleaner means of travelling. As an indication The Impact of Tourism on Climate Change (Peeters, 2007) reveals that European tourists use air travel for 20% of their trips, which yet accounts for 75% of the total tourism transport CO2 emissions (interesting to note the Pareto principles applies here).

The Green Travel Summit held on 23-24 March in California, came out with the top 10 challenges to greening corporate travel, of which 6 are directly related to change management issues, as highlighted below:

1. Where to begin

2. Perception vs reality regarding costs

3. Overcoming resistance to change

4. Buy in from senior management

5. ROI*

6. Securing budget

7. Reporting standards and metrics*

8. Green washing: truth vs fiction

9. Buy in from both the planner and the supplier

10. Communicating and educating all relative stakeholders

* to me directly related to change management as measuring and communicating successes and benefits is a key component

More details here

Decoding Resistance to Change

From my experience and learning, resistance to change comes from lack of skill or lack of will and to determine which of the two is the starting point for neutralizing resistance. I read this interesting article from HBR (and the idea in brief here) which focuses more on how managers can positively use resistance to change. While a proper change management plan will normally identify and adress upfront potential issues (see here how you can assess upfront your change capacity) brought by the change for each stakeholder group, this is also the demonstration that confronted with resistance, it is never too late to turn things around.

How to avoid death by Powerpoint

If really powerful, a presentation can have a huge impact in a change process and contribute very clearly to change people's behaviour. Yet, we all know the difficulty of not falling into the trap of doing indigestive powerpoint slides with lots of bullet points, complex charts etc. In fact you could say it is quite simple to make complex slides and very complex to make simple slides.

Most people have also attended some sort of training on the subject and have learnt the ground rules like one message per slide, limited number of bullet points, visual aid, clear storyline etc.

For something that goes much more beyond those basic rules, www.vizthink.com offered last June an excellent webinar on powerful presentations by Nancy Duarte who actually advised Al Gore on his Inconvenient Truth presentation.

Link to the webinar: http://www.vizthink.com/blog/2008/06/18/webinar-creating-powerful-presentations-with-nancy-duarte/

Major Change Case at the CGIAR

The CGIAR is the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. It is described as a strategic alliance of members, partners and international agricultural research centers, which mission is "To achieve sustainable food security and reduce poverty in developing countries through scientific research and research-related activities in the fields of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, policy, and environment."

This organisation has started a major change initiative aiming at adopting a new reform model, redifining its vision, strategic goals and organisation in a context that has become challenging. The case for change is described as follow:

"The world of agricultural research has shifted dramatically. With the rapid growth of the national agricultural systems in Brazil, China and India the space that international research centers occupy has altered. Some national institutions challenge the ability of the CGIAR to partner equitably or meet their needs. The entry of strong new actors into the field of agricultural research is further challenging the role of the CGIAR as a major player in the world of international agricultural research.

The CGIAR may no longer be perceived as the critical provider of solutions for agricultural productivity, natural resource management or policy advice. As a result, CGIAR Center funding is not increasing in proportion to client needs.

If these trends continue, and the CGIAR does not adapt, the CGIAR will rapidly become irrelevant.

It is for these reasons that the CGIAR has launched a major change initiative.

The good news is that the CGIAR has never been more open to change."

As part of the initiative, the CGIAR change management blog has been created, enabling everyone to follow the initiative and, as the editor puts it, to open a dialogue engaging all stakeholders in the process. A remarkable initiative as long, of course, as it doesn't become the tree hiding a forest of poor stakeholder engagement.

A brief look at their reform model document gives reassurance that key stakeholder groups seem to have been represented in the definition of the new model. Of course, the main challenge in these workshops is to find the right balance between sharp but insufficiently shared output and non-value added group consensus.

With this in mind, I find the strategic objectives to be brilliantly formulated (Food for people, Environment for People, Policies for People). The vision ("To reduce poverty and hunger, improve human health and nutritionand enhance ecosystem resilience through high-quality international agricultural research, partnership and leadership") could, I think, have been a little more compelling and engaging, if a little shorter.

An interesting change initiative we'll be following...