The Tale Of Two Enterprise OCM Capability Deployments

This is a tale of two regions within one organization: both with the common goal of developing enterprise organizational change management (OCM) capability, but each with their own approach, and vastly different end results! 

Targeted Approach 

The first region took a very targeted approach to developing internal organizational capability.  

First, they identified their 2-3 most influential leaders. They asked those leaders to identify their upcoming big-bet projects: projects where buy-in from employees and customers was critical to success, projects that they had to get right, otherwise the company would not do well financially. This ensured that OCM was linked to influential leaders and the initiatives that they cared about. 

Next, they introduced organizational change management capabilities to the top 3 projects as a proof of concept. The project teams participated in OCM training and were asked to bring these projects to use as case studies during the training. Throughout the training, every OCM concept that was introduced was applied to those real-life, big-deal projects. Rather than introducing OCM through 100 PowerPoint slides, participants learned how to apply OCM through interactive working sessions to their current real-life projects. They came out of the training sessions with high level OCM plans for these projects and follow-up meetings for next steps. The training created momentum and OCM as an internal capability came to life. 

Finally, the first region also targeted individuals to develop an OCM capability as leave behind resources that could apply organizational change management to future projects. They targeted high potential individuals, recognizing that their OCM role on key projects would provide them with high levels of visibility, allow them to develop a critical new skill essential for any leader, and once again tie OCM to people in the organization who have pull. 

Waterfall Approach 

The second region took a waterfall approach to introducing organizational change management capabilities. 

First, they trained every single leader, then they trained everyone the next level down, and so on and so forth, through front-line supervisors. They were very proud and eager to boast that they trained everyone, 100s of people, in less than two months, which indeed was no small feat. However, the training was theoretical and was not tied in any way to their current work. The participants had no opportunity to apply the new OCM concepts and no frame of reference. Following the training, when the first big project came along, this region found that participants had suffered from learning decay, they did not remember what they had learned, and the OCM capability simply was not there. 

Results 

Data started coming in from projects in the region that took the targeted approach to developing OCM capability. Employees understood the change, they were bought into the change, and there was proof that they were learning key concepts through training. But most compelling were key performance metrics that indicated that where projects had applied organizational change management, employees were able to do their jobs on “Day 1” and disruption was minimized. 

Leaders were blown away by the results. Word started to spread that organizational change management drove positive project outcomes. Other senior leaders began to request organizational change management training and that OCM be applied to their projects. The enterprise OCM capability ball was rolling. Over time, an organizational change management network developed with monthly engagement for the sharing of best practices. Today, many years later, this model is still rolling and organizational change management is a now a core internal capability of the organization. 

Takeaway 

Is your organization developing an enterprise organizational change management capability? Rather than deploying OCM training to your entire organization, take time to stop, and to focus: 

• Who are your influential leaders? 

• What are their big-bet projects that can get the organizational change management ball rolling? 

• Who are your high potential individuals who can run with that ball to build and sustain OCM capability throughout your organization? 

Contact ChangeStaffing to learn how our organizational change management consultants can help your organization develop internal change capability. 

A special thanks to Julie Harrison, Human Resources consultant, for her thought leadership and for collaborating with us on this blog.