Change is inherently complex and hard to navigate. Leading change with limited resources? Even harder. However, with the correct strategies, impactful transformation isn’t beyond your reach. This executive brief outlines key approaches to boost the potential of your team and leverage available resources to deliver substantial change throughout your organization. By focusing on these essential elements and adopting proven tactics shared by our roundtable participants, you can enhance your organization’s capacity to drive transformation, irrespective of team size or resource limitations.
This roundtable was held on August 8th, 2024.
Maximizing Limited Resources: How to Drive Successful Change?
Driving change for your organization is a huge undertaking. When you have to navigate through this process with limited resources, it is crucial to approach the plan carefully from the start to ensure successful change implementations that are sustainable in the long run.
Step 1: Identify Available Resources
Leadership Qualifications:
Have one capable and experienced leader with the right mix of exposure and education in organizational change management or business transformation to lead the change.
Keep It Internal:
Avoid relying on external consultants as they lack the deep commitment and motivation to drive meaningful, lasting change. Instead, begin to instill the “why” in leaders and change champions so they can carry forth change within their respective teams.
Leverage Cross-Functional Teams:
Many organizations, especially those with smaller transformation teams, must rely on cross-functional collaboration to activate change successfully.
Utilize Tools and Technologies:
Resources include technology too. Equip the teams with the right tools such as Tigerhall’s Change Activation platform to engage your whole workforce in the change and showcase your organization’s overall commitment to change.
Step 2: Prioritize Strategic Objectives
You need to assess your organization’s priorities to ensure resources are directed where they will deliver the highest value and are truly aligned with the business’ strategic goals. Spreading resources too thin across multiple initiatives can dilute their effectiveness, subsequently leading to resource drain.
Evaluate ROI, Impact, and Feasibility:
Evaluate how much impact an initiative will have relative to the time, money, effort, and personnel that’s needed. Consider immediate and long-term impacts that the change will have on the business including operational processes, workforce dynamics, client relations, etc.
Use frameworks like the impact matrix in your prioritization strategy to maximize results, mitigate risks, build momentum, and support sustainable long-term change. By selecting and completing high effort, high impact projects, transformation offices can ensure that their expertise and work are felt throughout the organization.
Ensure Value Validation:
Even the most feasible and high-ROI projects can fail without the backing of key stakeholders. Ensure your change leaders can clearly quantify the value of change initiatives. Work on change initiatives sponsored by the CEO or their direct reports so that the initiative is seen as valuable and worth investing in by those who influence resource allocation.
Classify Project Importance:
Use a structured classification system to define the project’s importance and help leaders keep track of different initiatives and allocate resources quickly and effectively.
Develop a Strong Business Case:
A solid business case helps assess the scope, buy-in, potential risks, and benefits of the initiative. This way, high-value projects get the attention they need especially if they come with the risk of failure due to issues like adoption resistance.
Step 3: Emphasize Ownership & Readiness
Evaluate Change Readiness:
Begin by asking questions on how ready leadership is for any given change. Are they prepared to transform themselves and lead by example? Or are they merely asking others to change?
Identify Project Ownership:
Ownership ensures accountability. Assign a dedicated person or team responsible for tracking progress, making timely decisions, facilitating communications, and ensuring the initiative stays on course. Without it, efforts may become disorganized, leading to delays or wasted resources.
Step 4: Develop Skills & Learning
Upskill your workforce in change leadership skills. Create training programs, coaching, and workshops to develop internal capabilities and fluency in leading change.
Elevating your managers and partnering with functional leaders helps to decentralize the responsibilities of the change leadership team and build a stronger culture of change throughout the organization.
Roadmap to Success: Steering Change from Start to Finish
Nadine shared a model she uses to help steer change from start to finish when overall prioritization is neither feasible nor ideal. In this model, projects are split up into three phases and utilize a cross-collaborative environment between the change management team and the respective teams involved:
3-Steps Implementation:
1. Design Phase:
The initial design phase focuses on defining why change is necessary and which areas it will affect. Change leaders aren’t involved in this phase. The teams involved should outline the scope, value, and impact of the change before moving on to the next phase.
2. Blueprint Phase:
During this phase, change leaders are heavily involved and will collaborate with the requesting team to create a detailed implementation plan and strategies while aiding them to prepare elements that will be used during the execution of the change (i.e. helping them set up communication strategies).
3. Execution Phase:
The team requesting the change takes the lead during execution, with change leaders acting as thought partners and providing support only when necessary. This hands-off approach allows the change to take root within the team itself, freeing change leaders to work on multiple initiatives at once.
Successful, Real-Life Tactics to Implement Change with Limited Resources
1. Identify Change Leaders
Gather Change Champions
Build a network of ambassadors or change champions to act as vocal advocates for transformations to increase visibility, promote acceptance, and sustain change momentum over time.
Empower Wall Breakers:
Wall breakers are influential employees outside the change leadership team who can help overcome bureaucratic barriers and drive change faster, by providing a new perspective to the change. These individuals are often promoted and empowered to make decisions, possess the authority to remove obstacles, and have the CEO’s backing.
2. Build Excitement Toward Change
Generate excitement around change outcomes and find creative ways to communicate new initiatives to the workforce, to drive motivation and protect workplace sentiment.
3. Deploy Self-Service Toolkits
- When resources are scarce, creating and disseminating self-service tools allows teams or departments to manage aspects of the change themselves.
- Providing guidance with these toolkits enables teams to navigate the change process independently without needing constant oversight from the change management team while staying aligned with corporate goals.
4. Set Up Toll Gates
- Implement toll gates or checkpoints to review progress and tie them with funding releases.
- Embed change leadership principles within the review requirements to ensure that progress remains consistent with overarching change strategies and organizational best practices.
How Do You Keep Your Team Motivated When Resources Are Scarce?
1. Get Personal:
Send out a survey to get to know your change and transformation team better, to personalize your leadership approach.
Here are some questions Dustin recommends to get the ball rolling:
- Are you a night owl or an early bird?
- Are weekends sacred or is it ok to catch up then?
- Do you prefer hearing the backstory when getting an update or a more cut-to-the-chase approach?
- How do you prefer to be reached when there’s an urgent issue: email, call, or text?
2. Provide Growth Opportunities:
Offer training, certifications, or upskilling opportunities related to change leadership to help nurture a sense of personal and professional development.
3. Hear Them Out:
Hold regular global and regional check-ins to provide a platform for feedback and updates. And create a safe space for expression where they can vent, share their concerns, and express themselves to build trust and strengthen morale. This fosters a supportive atmosphere and helps address issues as they arise.
4. Recognize Achievements and Milestones:
Develop clear, measurable change metrics as part of performance evaluations for bonuses and rewards. Recognition and appreciation help reinforce the team’s confidence and job security, driving them to perform better.
Conclusion
While leading change with limited resources can be challenging, it is by no means insurmountable. By strategically maximizing the strengths of your team and making the most of available resources, you can overcome limiting obstacles and help your organization achieve impactful and lasting transformations.
The insights from this ECLC roundtable provide a roadmap for navigating these complexities, highlighting the importance of collaboration, smart resource allocation, and maintaining team motivation. With these approaches, even the leanest teams can drive impactful change and position their organizations for long-term success.
The Executive Council for Leading Change
The Executive Council for Leading Change (ECLC) is a global organization that brings executives together to redefine the landscape of organizational change and transformation. Our council aims to advance strategic leadership expertise in the realm of corporate change by connecting visionary leaders. It's a place where leaders responsible for significant change initiatives can collaborate, plan, and create practical solutions for intricate challenges in leading large organizations through major shifts.
In a world where change is constant, we recognize its crucial role in driving business success. ECLC’s mission is to create a community where leaders can excel in guiding their organizations through these dynamic times.
Interested in joining ECLC? Learn the membership criteria and sign-up below.
