13 Things to consider if you want to be taken seriously as a Change Manager

Things to consider 1-3

Stop calling everything “Transformation”. This has become a meaningless term in the same way that “excellence” 10 years ago. Honestly, it cant be long before the local pizza shop will be using the word when they do a 2 for 1 deal!

If you think it is worth using – then at least make reference to what is the transformation (preferably in terms real outcomes)

Don’t be content that you understand a lot about change – get to understand the business of your company or client. “C” level leaders are concerned customer experience, revenue, costs, shareholder value, share of market, digital volatility etc. – unless and until the change work can demonstrate value in this context, change management will remain as “chocolates on the pillow”

Things to consider 4-5

Don’t let yourself get submerged under the so-called leadership of PM. For sure they will think that they are the world experts on change (after doing a 4 hour add-on to their Prince 2 training). Generally they don’t know what they don’t know – but they will drown your change efforts…..and then blame you and throw you under the bus

Take the advice of Jack Welch and really understand why change projects can fail – and be honest. So many change people whine about change projects failing – but they seem to never really reflect. They are however very good at blaming the rest of the organization! It’s a bit like surgeons blaming their patients for being unwell

Things to consider 6-7

Aim to be a strategic change manager. Treat the work like a private equity deal where speed to act is key – where you look for the 80:20 rule and go for the big wins and the low hanging fruit. How often do clients talk about lean projects, scrum development, co-creation of customer experiences…..and yet there is the change material looking no different than it did 20 years ago

Be careful not to boast about working of big 2 year projects – because those projects were probably 6 months projects but everyone messed up. You only have to watch the growth of Salesforce and their cloud solutions to know that the big, slow, behind schedule projects are gone!!

Things to consider 8-11

Stop obsessing over pretty PowerPoints. It seems that where people labour over their slide deck, the content is usually next to worthless. Ask yourself is the employer/client looking for presentations or executed results.

If you are serious about effective presentations - then go and read Barbara Minto. Don’t know who she is? …..you should be ashamed of yourself

Become obsessed to understand all the leading edge work that is being done to drive customer experience and to compensate from the reality that 90% of all enterprise CRM systems delivered no more than 10% of the promised benefits

Read “The Machine That Changed The World” – it will amaze you about Lean everything

Things to consider 12-13

Build a compelling cost-benefit case for the change work that you do

Have a compelling change “elevator pitch” when you are in the lift with the CEO