By Gary Lieberman, JD, MBA
Vice President, Board Insights

More and more, managing change is an ongoing part of a leader’s job. Even in the best times. given the best ideas, the best products, and the best people successful change is never guaranteed. In fact, the majority of organizational changes fail. Why? Failures often are caused by poor execution of strategies. And the chance for successful execution is even tougher with today’s continually changing economic conditions.

How can leaders improve their chances for success during change? How can your company reach breakthrough goals, drive new revenue growth, or operate more effectively as a team during these turbulent times? Leaders who successfully maneuver through change and whose companies emerge stronger tend to do four things.

Share A Vision: Regardless of the change, a leader must always have a clear vision. David Gergen, noted political consultant and former advisor to Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton, once said that “A leader’s role is to raise people’s aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there.” Equally important is the ability to share that vision with others – where the organization is, where it needs to go, and how it plans to get there. Leaders also face the ultimate responsibility of creating and operationalizing the strategies that will fulfill that vision.

Understand the Impact on Others: To implement change, leaders must understand the effect of that change on everyone in the organization. And they must create targeted plans to build support or minimize resistance of all key stakeholders who can make or break the strategy – often that may be different for each group. But without identifying and including internal and external resistance, and planning how to overcome it, successful change is much less likely.

Measure and Monitor: Too often leaders have an idea of desired outcomes but don’t take the time to put key milestones and measures into place during the strategic planning and execution processes. And even when they do, they are often only loosely watched and rarely adjusted. Successful execution requires a proactive approach to measurement, the ability to quantify change. This improves the opportunity to communicate throughout the change process with your key groups, increasing the chance for their support and helping to minimize resistance.

The balanced scorecard

An effective tool to measure the change, while improving strategy execution is the Balanced Scorecard.

The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system that is used extensively in business and industry, government, and nonprofit organizations worldwide to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organization performance against strategic goals.

It was originated by Drs. Robert Kaplan (Harvard Business School) and David Norton as a performance measurement framework that added strategic non-financial performance measures to traditional financial metrics to give managers and executives a more ‘balanced’ view of organizational performance.

Communicate: You have a vision and strategy, you may understand the needs and concerns of all key stakeholders, and you can measure outcomes. It is essential to communicate regularly to each of your constituencies. The core message will be the same, but how you deliver that message, who delivers it, and through what channels will need to differ according to each key group. But change communication always starts with leadership.

Each component is vital in its own right and challenging to accomplish. Yet, when a leader is able to Share a Vision, Understand the Impact on Others, Measure and Monitor progress, and Communicate, their ability to navigate change successfully increases dramatically. The sooner a leader can master these fundamental skills, the better prepared they will be for the future. As John Kotter, author of Leading Change once noted, “The rate of change is not going to slow down anytime soon. If anything, competition in most industries will probably speed up even more in the next few decades.”

Gary Lieberman, JD, MBA is vice president, client services, of Board Insights, a performance improvement consulting firm that focuses on helping organizations create smart growth by aligning their execution to strategy. The firm helps clients turn around and manage their business more effectively. With more than 20 years of experience, Board Insights helps companies solve complex business challenges by building on the power of its most important assets – strategies, people, and processes. More information about Board Insights is available at www.boardinsights.com or info@boardinsights.com.

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