The 3 Audiences of Change

Change tends to happen slowly because it impacts three audiences, two of which have the power, inertia, and communications to support or defeat the change initiative. Your ‘advocate’ audience perceives a change initiative as an opportunity to make a difference that also increases their visibility, while helping the company improve its means of creating value. They care about the change, believe that they’ll benefit from it, and so organize to support it. Your ‘resistance’ audience …

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Precedents vs. Possibilities

Two components define a company’s culture:  1.      Its perspective towards people interactions and coordination (codependence vs. independence).  A codependent culture emphasizes collaboration, managing relationships, and generating team success. Independent cultures value autonomy, individual action, and competition.  2.      Its response to change (stability vs. agility).  Cultures that favor stability prioritize consistency, predictability, and preservation of the status quo to drive efficiency and risk aversion. Those that value agility stress flexibility, adaptability, and receptiveness to change, prioritizing innovation, openness and a …

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Faster ROI on Leadership Development

Measuring ROI on leadership development is elusive. At the strategic level, it can take time to generate the improved results expected from leaders in whom such an investment is made. But achieving those results is actually the culmination of multiple, interim actions, taken by the leader’s team who were motivated by the leader to do more than fulfill assigned responsibilities, to invest their energy and talent in making something better. Each change initiative included KPIs which identified …

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Breaking Innovation Barriers

  Most organizations pronounce their commitment to curiosity, creativity and innovation; yet the reality is that many of these companies can be hostile to the exploration of new ideas. To achieve predictable growth, it is perceived as less risky to pursue operational efficiency through continuous improvement than to challenge the status quo, encouraging the exploration of innovations that might possibly disrupt a stable business. But with most organizations being steadily challenged by changing customer needs, technology …

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