Change: Proving the Mettle of Leadership

April 22-23, 2012Rochester Institute of Technology

Rochester, NY

Rochester

Change: Proving the Mettle of Leadership

Alyssa FoxSenior Manager, Information Development

NetIQ Corporation

23 April 2012

© 2012 NetIQ Corporation. All rights reserved.3

• Get out of firefighter mode so you can honestly assess whether change is needed.

• Talk to as many people at as many levels as you can.

• Recognize there’s a problem, and get the team to agree there’s a problem.

Is There a Need for Change?


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Don’t make a change for the sake of making change.

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Successful transformation is 70-90% leadership and only 10-30%

management.


• Responses from people– Be empathetic.

– Consider timing.

• Disconnects between ideas on the top and realities on the ground

• Inflexible corporate systems, policies, and procedures

Understand the Barriers to Change


• Find the right membership.– Position power

(enough key players/main line managers?)

– Expertise(various points of view included?)

– Credibility(members have good reputations to be taken seriously?)

– Leadership(enough proven leaders to drive the change?)

• Trust and a common goal are essential to a successful transformation.

Create a Guiding Coalition


• Vision – a picture of the future and why people should strive to create that future.

• Key elements in effectively communicating vision:– Simplicity

– Metaphor, analogy, and example

– Multiple forums

– Repetition

– Leadership by example

– Explanation of seeming inconsistencies

– Give-and-take (two-way communication)

Develop and Communicate the Vision


• Remove structural barriers.

• Provide needed training.

• Align systems to the vision.

• Deal with troublesome managers.

Empower Action


• Role of short-term wins:– Provide evidence that sacrifices are worth it.

– Reward change agents, build morale.

– Help fine-tune vision and strategies.

– Undermine cynics and keep bosses on board.

– Build momentum.

• Characteristics of a good short-term win:– It’s visible.

– It’s unambiguous.

– It’s clearly related to the change effort.

• Don’t fight everything with force.

Generate Short-Term Wins


• Culture is powerful.– Individuals are selected and indoctrinated so well.

– Culture exerts itself through the actions of hundreds or thousands of people.

– All of this happens without much conscious intent and is difficult to challenge or even discuss.

• Anchoring change in a culture comes LAST, not first.

Anchor New Approaches in the Culture


• Resistance is always waiting to reassert itself, and highly interdependent organizations can slow change down.

• Successful change efforts include the following:

– More change, not less.

– More help.

– Leadership from senior management (clarity of shared purpose, keep urgency levels up).

– Project management and leadership from below (lead and manage specific projects).

– Reduction of unnecessary interdependencies.

Perpetuate Change


• Leading Change by John P. Kotter

• Insights You Can Use blog – Esther Derbyhttp://www.estherderby.com/category/insights

• Management Excellence blog – Art Pettyhttp://artpetty.com/blog/

References

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http://www.estherderby.com/category/insights

http://artpetty.com/blog/


Thank you.

Questions?

Alyssa [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Rochester

Conference evaluation link:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Spectrum2012-ConferenceEvaluation

Session evaluation link:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Spectrum2012-SessionEvaluation

Change: Proving the Mettle of Leadership

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