guest post by Frank McComb

At Tufts University, on a panel of executives addressing a graduate course, I was recently asked to speak about “Being a change agent in an operations environment”.    Where do you start on such a critical topic

Here’s what I challenged the students to consider as change leaders

What needs to change and why
• “What” must support the organization’s business strategy.
•  “Why” is important because you are asking people to change their thinking and their actions.
o Must be important, urgent, and real
o Must answer the WIIFM question (What’s in it for me)

Vision  
• What does the future state look like  How will our performance will be different
• Involve stakeholders in fleshing this out, both for their buy-in and for their insight

How will we get to the future state
• Involve stakeholders in the “how”
o Real performance change requires cultural and mindset change
o Often requires training, developing new ways of thinking, and new procedures
o Change agent must solicit and listen to ideas, issues, concerns

Metrics that measure the change and progress

Make the change important!
• Make it visual!  (big metrics charts in key areas, etc)
• Clear expectations of people
• Support by management (time, money, priority and participation)
• Tie the progress and goals to compensation (“We’re serious about this!”)

Communicate, communicate, communicate!
• Review progress regularly and often
• Re-emphasize the “why” and the goals at every opportunity
• Recognize progress, good efforts, even good-try failures

Lead by personal example!

The Tufts students had a lot of questions; about resistance to change, lack of management support, and how to convince others of the need to change. This is hard work.  Even companies that see the need for change often can’t achieve or sustain it. 

Good companies know they need to change and improve constantly.  In Operations we call it Continuous Improvement.  It takes experienced and committed leaders using proven tools to help employees make lasting improvements in operating performance.  It often takes experienced coaching to help managers learn to lead change.

Learning to lead improvement is a lifelong challenge in Operations, as well as in any other function.  But that is what leaders do; they are change agents for the better.  If you are a leader, you are already in that role.  

How are you doing as a change agent

Frank McComb is a partner in Pivotal Strategies LLC, an advisory and interim executive firm providing guidance and leadership to companies in need of change.  www.pivotalstrategiesllc.com.
He can be reached at hfmccomb@pivotalstrategiesllc.com