Collective Impact is defined as “the commitment of a group of important actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem.” The process of forming these initiatives involves building a strong foundation, initiating action, organizing for impact, and sustaining action. Common attributes of these projects include:

Your Change Team just completed a highly successful SAP implementation. Measureable benefits started early on and continue to flow in. You were given special recognition at the annual shareholder meeting. Today, you see in the Wall Street Journal that your company, second in its segment, is acquiring the third place firm. You stand by for a call to action by the CEO, but the phone never rings. You know that failure rates in these projects are between 50 and 85 percent. One KPMG study found that 83 percent of these deals hadn't boosted shareholder returns, while a separate study by A.T. Kearney concluded that total returns on M&A were negative.²   Sounds like a high risk proposition. What might you and your team’s role be in a merger-acquisition project? How might you get engaged?

As organization change practitioners for more than 35 years, we have witnessed admitted failures, claimed successes and, least often, real change that matters in a competitive marketplace. If we were to develop a scoresheet for these projects, it would have three major elements:

1. Change Project Delivery
2. Stickiness of the Change
3. Agility or the Ability to Keep Changing

Leadership engagement at every level is an undeniable requirement for successful change. Unfortunately, many executives think a seminar or other training program meets this need. No surprise that such palliatives have little impact. This is especially true when previous training was simply to be endured and change initiatives have failed.

According to Wikipedia, a disruptive change is an innovation that creates a new market by applying a different set of values, which ultimately (and unexpectedly) overtakes an existing market. It begs the question - why are some organizations capable of successful innovative change while others either fail to change or fail to recognize the opportunities. The potential economic impact cannot be overstated. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, two disruptive innovations - advanced robotics and cloud computing - have the potential to impact over $9 Trillion in global economic activity.

It is commonly understood that successful change relies on closing gaps between the current and future state. Most change practitioners categorize the gaps in relation to people, process, and tools.^1,2,. Most change projects focus on the people side, with emphasis on internal stakeholders. In most projects, this comes down to the direct impacts on the users of new technology and/or process. This approach works if projects involve big technology investments like ERPs, where the overwhelming impact is internal.

To attend a webinar on this topic or other topics covered in Focusing Change to Win go to http://focusingchangetowin.com/webinar/. Use the comment form below or email us directly at admin@tbointl.com to ask a question or to open a dialogue with the author or one of our other team members.

In this eighth and final post, based on Nick Anderson's book, Focusing Change to Win, we highlight contributions from 1072 business leaders. This post provides conclusions on how leaders create thriving organizations, as well as a summary of the lessons from the previous posts. 

To attend a webinar on this topic or other topics covered in Focusing Change to Win go to  http://focusingchangetowin.com/webinar/. Use the comment form below or email us directly at admin@tbointl.com to ask a question or to open a dialogue with the author or one of our other team members.

In this seventh post, based on Nick Anderson's book, Focusing Change to Win, we highlight contributions from 1072 Business Leaders. This post gives some of the key findings on effective communications and how they impact resistance and ultimately change success. The following is based on 684 contributors who chose to add comments on communicating change. Unsurprisingly, contributors see their people at the heart of any successful change process. They see gaining stakeholder commitment and creating a cadre of change ambassadors as a force multiplier. Essential to creating that commitment are leaders taking their people into their confidence with honesty and courage.