CASE STUDY
Change Leadership Capability Delivers Project Results
Challenge
The leaders of a major defense contractor recognized they were not getting the rapid results they needed from their mission-critical change initiatives. The organization had established Project Management, Change Management, Organization Development, and Six Sigma functions, but collectively they were not able to deliver the outcomes the leaders desired. They worked independently and often competed with one another. The head of talent development wanted to train all these resources in a common approach that would build on their unique areas of expertise while expanding their perspectives, change leadership capabilities and methods to accomplish their change goals. They contracted with Being First to build these practitioners into pragmatic conscious change consultants able to work well together.
Solution
In partnership with the heads of the existing change-support functions, we identified the priority projects that all practitioners were working on and secured a briefing of the current status and needs of the projects. We ran a series of change leadership trainings and working sessions to teach, apply, and advance the plans for these initiatives. We worked with the leaders of these functions to see how to integrate their trusted approaches with The Change Leader’s Roadmap so everybody could find where their capabilities added the most value to the project work, and when in the change process they were best used. This alleviated their concerns about being replaced or duplicated. All training and working sessions were directly project-applied, so every project advanced its plans. We stressed the importance of including the cultural and behavioral requirements within their original project scope and taught them how to address these issues more effectively. We also worked with the project sponsors to ensure they knew how and when to engage their change support resources in their projects for their highest and best use.
Results
- Improved the results on their major strategic change initiatives
- Built enterprise change leadership capability, thinking and tools to support the success of projects across the organization
- Kept them working as a more unified team when on projects together
- Strengthened their skills and confidence in addressing the essential human dynamics in their projects from the beginning
- Aligned the Project Management, Change Management, Organization Development, and Six Sigma practitioners in how best to support the projects they were deployed on
- Created an ongoing Community of Practice to continue developing practitioners’ change leadership skills
- Led to greater adoption and sustainment of results
- Built the understanding of project sponsors to know when and how to call on their resources for the best results
