Change Sponsors: The Transformation Trailblazers
As a leader, have you been asked to play a Change Sponsor role without a clear understanding of its impact? Our latest insights article reveals practical tactics and strategies, ensuring you not only understand the role of sponsorship, but become the driving force for change in your organization. Learn about how effectively filling the Change Sponsor role can build certainty around the success of any transformation and establish yourself as a trusted leader who can successfully enable complex change to meet your business objectives.
During times of organizational transformation, effective sponsorship is critical. Engaged sponsors do more than just lead. They are the transformation trailblazers whose visible commitment and strategic leadership are essential in steering the organization through the complexities of change to ensure successful and sustainable outcomes. At the same time, engaged sponsors actively show how dedicated they are by building trust and getting everyone on the same page. Their strong support becomes a big motivation, which in turn, encourages everyone to not just accept but embrace the changes.
Conversely, the absence of effective sponsorship can derail even the most well-planned initiatives. Without strong leadership, transformation efforts face confusion and resistance, increasing the risk of failure. Inadequate resources and poor communication from sponsors can exacerbate issues and lead to delays that jeopardize the initiative. Simply put, the role of sponsors shapes how well an organization can change. They either make the change a success story or contribute to potential issues. Keep reading for the key actions Change Sponsors must do to drive change effectively.
Key Actions for Change Sponsors:
1. Create a Clearly Defined Vision and Target State: As a sponsor, your role is to create and communicate a clear, compelling vision for organizational change that aligns with the company's strategic objectives. It's important to ensure that this vision and the target state are well-understood and can be effectively articulated by both you and other leaders.
Communicate Effectively: Ensure that the vision for change is not only compelling but is also communicated effectively to different groups within the organization, emphasizing the benefits and relevance to each group.
Collaborate and Align: Work closely with other leaders to align your visions, addressing any discrepancies and ensuring a unified front in leading the transformation.
2. Ensure Compelling Messaging: Crafting compelling messaging that clearly explains the "why" and "how" of a change initiative is essential. This forms the core of an effective engagement and communication plan, which plays a key role in informing and engaging employees during the change. Ensure alignment on overarching key messages relevant to all, while customizing additional details based on specific audience needs.
Workshop for Clarity: Set up a workshop with your change management lead and project team to collaboratively develop a clear and compelling message that addresses both the "why" and the "how" of the change.
Tailor Messages: Customize key messages based on the specific needs and concerns of different audience groups, ensuring that the communication plan is inclusive and resonates with everyone involved in the transformation.
3. Visibly Champion the Change: As a leader, visibly championing the change and consistently reinforcing the vision in all interactions with your teams is key. It's crucial that your audience sees your commitment and understands that you are collectively navigating the change. Utilize opportunities like town halls to express support, personalize your message by explaining personal importance, and ensure transparency about the change process to maintain trust and engagement.
Showcase Commitment: Use various platforms like town halls and team meetings to visibly demonstrate your support for the change, showing your team that you're fully committed and involved.
Personalize and Clarify: Make your communication personal by sharing why the change matters to you and be transparent about the change process and future steps to build trust and relevance with your audience.
4. Tailor Change Management Strategy: Adapting the change management strategy to your organization's level of change readiness and maturity is critical for success. Rather than opting for generic plans, focus on strategies that specifically address the unique needs of your organization. Start by assessing current change management maturity and tailor the approach accordingly. Encourage the change management team to evaluate other ongoing changes and establish a consistent process to measure audience readiness at different project stages.
Customize Approach: Avoid one-size-fits-all strategies and tailor the change management approach to the specific needs and readiness level of your organization.
Continuous Assessment: Implement a process for regularly assessing the change readiness of your audience at different project stages, allowing for timely adjustments, and ensuring alignment with organizational maturity.
5. Make the Employee Experience a Priority: Prioritizing employee experience is key to successful and sustainable organizational transformation. Embed employee input and needs into the design process and maintain this focus throughout execution to boost their investment and the transformation's long-term viability. In the design phase, ask early questions about employee experience and set up a process for real user feedback on new workflows. Also, establish a support system like change networks to sustain the change.
Employee-Centric Design: Embed employee experience considerations into the transformation design process, involving employees from the beginning and making their needs a priority.
Feedback and Support: Establish mechanisms for collecting feedback from real users during the design phase and implement a support system, like change networks, to ensure the sustained success of the transformation.
Effective sponsorship in organizational transformation is multifaceted. It requires a clear vision, compelling communication, visible leadership, a tailored approach, and a focus on the employee experience. Keeping these pillars in mind can transform the role of a sponsor from a title to a driver of successful change. To discuss further, reach out to us for a more in-depth discussion on your specific change and transformation needs.