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Customized
Change Program
Business
Imperative
In a fast-paced, volatile technology market, this financial institution's
corporate technology support group was faced with a multi-faceted
challenge. How could it reorganize and align its operations quickly
to better deliver on pressing strategic mandates … while continuing
to meet the business' rapidly-shifting needs … and while building
its long-term capacity for performing in an increasingly unpredictable
future? This was no mere philosophical exercise. If this group could
not quickly establish and distinguish its long-term value to the
corporation, its services would be outsourced and the firm would
seek other ways of meeting strategic technology needs. This would
be a tremendous waste of opportunity both for the people of the
support group and other stakeholders in the organization. Leaders
of the technology group knew that the talent, commitment, and experience
of their human resources represented a real competitive edge, if
they could be engaged, aligned, and applied in newly strategic ways.
Leadership
Response
Given a clear mandate, leaders didn't waste a moment. They adopted
"fast forward" as a rallying cry and aggressively developed a set
of market-ready transformation initiatives to get the organization
moving quickly. Despite their clear sense of urgency, they knew
the necessary transformations could not occur fast enough or well
enough without the committed support of additional key leaders throughout
the group.
These leaders,
designated as their change team, were identified from throughout
the organization based on their accomplishments, efforts, and behaviors
in support of their market-ready objectives. Stratton Consulting
Group's team was brought in to create a fully integrated learning
experience for the change team. They would be charged with driving
many of the technology group's most aggressive change initiatives,
and with modeling the new "fast forward" way of being for people
throughout the business … and they needed tools, experiences,
and guidance to prepare them for success. Members of the change
team would need to emerge fully enabled to:
- Commit to
the change and the market-ready vision
- Understand
the need for change and help drive the effort
- Communicate
the market-ready vision and ensure credibility
- Demonstrate
a broad-based knowledge of the technology group's functions, products,
and services, and a willingness to continuously extend their learning
- Motivate,
inspire and empower other employees to take action
- Develop
strategies for achieving the vision, lead change projects, and
generate high-impact, short-term wins
- Encourage
all employees to work together as a team
Accelerating
Toward Success
To ensure the team's effectiveness, Stratton designed and facilitated
a two-day "kick-off" event, which set the context for the team's
challenges. This was followed by four follow-up modules, each of
which focused on specific, pragmatic approaches, skills, tools,
leveraged learning, and coaching to facilitate on-the-job success.
The modules were designed as building blocks, leveraging the lessons
of each previous session as well as what participants learned in
their experiences between events. The sessions were highly participative,
structured to fully engage each change team member in their individual
and team development. Participants were further supported by a "tool
kit" of job aids and instructional summaries to reinforce lessons
and facilitate their application on the job. In addition, each change
team member had access to personal coaching throughout the process,
to ensure the full value of their experiences, both in and between
"classroom" sessions.
Mid-Course
Adjustments
When a full-scale merger occurred, the need for change team members
dramatically increased. Once new team members were identified, they
requested Stratton's assistance in defining and developing the skills
needed to effectively engage and lead their people through these
new levels of complexity and change, maintaining the attitudes and
behaviors necessary to success. The team's fundamental mandate did
not change. They were to continue leading the transformation into
a high-value service company within the Bank. With the merger, they
were not being called upon to "fix" something that was wrong, but
to build upon a record of performance, leveraging valuable resources,
experiences and opportunities in new and creative ways to ensure
a future of success. Stratton designed, developed and facilitated
a two-day orientation program for newly selected team members. This
session grounded participants in key skill areas and development
topics, and included the opportunity for new members to interact
with - and learn from - experienced change team members. As a follow-up,
Stratton subsequently designed, developed and facilitated a high-powered,
experiential teambuilding program. This session was used to clarify
the post-merger charter and role of the newly constituted cadre
of facilitators of change. It was also used to further develop the
skills and capacities of the team, focusing on common post-merger
dynamics involving competition and threat, leadership and courage,
playing to win vs. playing not to lose, and winning through excellence.
Results
The change team quickly established themselves as individuals prepared
to take on challenges and get things done. By embodying the spirits
of "fast forward" and "market ready," they not only facilitated
changes in relationships and operations throughout the technology
group and its client organizations, they provided the model by which
others throughout the Bank began to learn more effective approaches
to change, seeding the organization itself with an increased capacity
for learning and performance.
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