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Participants in the Prosci’s benchmarking study “Best Practices in Change Management – 2016 Edition”, identified active and visible executive sponsors as the key contributors to the success of their change initiatives. When asked to identify the biggest obstacle to success, participants in the same study identified a lack of effective change sponsorship from senior leaders as their primary obstacle to success. It is important to note the biggest obstacles were not lack of funding, poor planning, or resource constraints as one would have imagined, but the lack of effective change sponsorship.
This is contrary to the perception that a sponsor is a senior executive who will occasionally sign off project and change management documents and make an appearance at major stakeholder engagements. The success of any project is directly related to the ‘active engagement’ of the sponsor. Typically, the role of the sponsor is to ensure alignment between the project’s goals and organisation’s strategy, garner support and remove roadblocks from other senior executives, and provide ongoing direction as the effort unfolds.
It is therefore imperative for the change practitioner to obtain buy-in and ensure alignment with the sponsor early on to clarify expectations and agree sponsors’ roles and responsibilities. This might be a challenge for consultants as they would first have to establish credibility before they can obtain the sponsors buy-in and commitment. It is however worth investing time and effort into, as it holds the key to a meaningful relationship between the sponsor and the change management team.
When the sponsor is clear on what their role is, they can prioritise, support and participate in change initiatives. It is therefore important for the change team to share of the outcome of the Change Impact Assessment with the sponsor to ensure comprehension of the scope of the change and the urgency of impacts.
The roles for senior leaders outlined below are required in times of change:
People mimic leaders behaviour! This is precisely the reason the sponsor should display desired behaviours throughout the effort. A personal example from the current project was when the sponsor clearly outlined his vision around the engagements with organised labour. To realise this vision, the sponsor travelled with the change team to facilitate the initial meeting and set up the governance structure to ensure complete involvement of labour in employee engagements. From this point onwards, the change team had full appreciation of the deliverable and therefore, executed it as envisioned by the sponsor. However, the opposite is equally true, if the sponsor is disengaged the same can be expected from the change and project teams.
Change initiatives alone will not drive the change successfully without the involvement and visibility of leaders. It is the sponsor and senior leaders who can legitimise the change. Employees will ask: Why the change? Why now? How will it impact my job? The sponsor and other leaders should be present to position the change and its benefits to the employees and the business as well to reassure impacted employees. Unless these key messages are delivered at the right level, people may resist or only partially adapt to change. It is only the organisation that can effectively deliver the change, not change practitioners.
The sponsor must explore platforms to mobilise other leaders to support the change. When other leaders become champions for the change employees in their divisions are also likely to buy-in to change.
Very often projects start off well only to experience turbulence midway or towards the end. During these periods, the team looks to the sponsor for direction. It is the sponsors responsibility to keep a finger on the pulse of the project to know when their intervention is required as things can easily progress from the green zone to the red in short period of time. Challenges experienced recently on our project indicate the importance for the sponsor to cultivate a culture of openness and honesty to ensure team members do not hide deficiencies out fear of reprisal as the impact of this on project timelines and the budget could be detrimental.
Whilst the change team can conduct team health assessments and provide feedback to the sponsors, it is the sponsors’ responsibility to ensure the wellbeing of all team members to successfully deliver the project.
