The link between Change Sponsor and Change Management Team…Part 2 of 4 in my blog series about Change Leadership Team Readiness.

Welcome to Part 2 of my 4-part blog on Change Leadership Team Readiness. I’m focusing here on that link between a motivated change sponsor and her or his team of drivers. It can easily be taken for granted that functional leaders know how to manage change.  So how can a sponsor, who has invested budget, time, effort and credibility into the change, be assured that the team is capable?

Big Lesson 2: Resources…Gauge
your change leaders’
willingness to dedicate hours and budget for change implementation. 

 

Best practice has shown that functional leaders need to allocate adequate people power onto change teams, with appropriate budgeting to cover their efforts. They also need to plan for contingencies.

It’s far easier for a function leaders to commit resources to a change initiative when enabling supports have been provided from above, or have been sanctioned for use by the top change sponsor.  This enabling can take the form of an actual budget allowance to cover hours dedicated to the change project (if applicable), or a relaxation of normal metrics that could allow a change leader to dedicate all or a portion of employees hours that might be needed, to the change project.

Sometimes, the decision belongs to the functional leader on whether to dedicate staff to the effort. In this instance, a change sponsor can learn a lot by just watching, and then asking. What the functional leader does can be very telltale and could signal a strength, or a risk.

Here are a set of questions the sponsor should ask the change team leader at this point in implementation planning:

If the change leader (function leader) chose not to dedicate significant change team employee hours (>50% FTE) to the change:

• Have you conducted a realistic evaluation of the effort required to make your population ready for the change? Have you also evaluated what effort will be needed to support the change during and after implementation?
• Have you compared your findings with those of your change leader peers on my team? How do they stack up?
• Have you identified the change implementation risks in your function?
• What contingencies have you put in place to address these potential risks?

And finally…

• Do you claim full responsibility for the initiative’s outcomes in your area?

If the change leader (function leader) did in fact dedicate >50% of change team members’ time to the project, the questions are fewer:

• Did you base your allocation on a good assessment of the effort needed to accomplish the change?
• Have you identified the change implementation risks in your function?
• What contingencies have you put in place to address these potential risks?

While the nature of these questions may seem counter to effective delegation – and perhaps even intrusive – they represent key insight moments for both the sponsor and the functional leader. Of course, the sponsor always retains the right to mandate the dedication of resources to help avoid risk. But if she or he – and the organization – can stomach the risks, holding back and just asking questions brings a ton of value.

Look out for part 3 of this 4-part blog series, on Sustaining Change.

About Alexander Kosnik of Onward Executive Coaching LLC: Alexander Kosnik is the Principal and Founder of Onward Executive Coaching, a coaching practice dedicated to supporting leaders and their teams with career, growth and development, and change management-related initiatives. He brings twenty years of experience with leaders and change in five continents. Visit OnwardExecutiveCoaching.com for more information.