Profile

Whether change is large or small, the ability to manage change is a critical competency for high deliverance companies. iSource helps organisations prepare for inevitable changes, manage complex organisational and workforce transitions to achieve business readiness. Companies that have existed for a large length of time have only existed because of adapting and being open to change. We do not believe in evolution that rumors to take decades to happen, but we believe in adaptation which is quick and real.

Companies like British Telecom not only changed their name to BT but have also changed their entire focus on telecom solutions to provide governments their project management and consultancy resources that also drive the next phase of demand with re-seller solutions that fuel their business investments like broadband. We must remember that Billion dollar companies have collapsed with minuet companies having taken over as they were ready to accept customer and internal demands.

Managing Change

Organisations that proactively manage change as a matter of daily business are much better positioned to succeed than those that continue to view change management as an isolated, "event-driven" activity. A game of chess requires anticipation of more than event driven activity but also forward planning and understanding your opponent. Often players and rudimentarily business make short term changes that appear as benefit but in medium term re-do everything. Specialists are key to anticipating short term requirements in light of business needs but also the direction of what is coming next. Why waste your immediate direction on every move?

Background

In the world of business, one of the few constants is change. Historically, organisations have tended to embrace change incrementally. When market conditions shift, companies respond by implementing discrete solutions (often in the form of new processes or technologies) to improve the performance of specific business units. After a bumpy transition to the new way of working, it’s “smooth sailing” — at least until the next change is required.

Today companies must be quicker to market and adapt to demands of challenges, internally and externally. Companies must address demanding customers, stronger competitors, stringent regulations and shareholders who expect always-better and ever-faster results. Whilst performing business as usual, roadmaps and task forces need to be laid that tackle and make ready forward strategy.

Entering new markets, expanding product or service lines, merging with competitors or implementing technologies across global enterprise, companies must be able to successfully launch fundamental transformations within their organisations. What is of more importance is that ongoing business operations must not be impacted adversely.

The term "change management" was used to describe a set of skills used to manage an organisation's "people issues" during a business improvement effort. Change management typically referred to training and communications activities that could enable a workforce to take the greatest advantage of a business improvement solution.

Technology always need to go hand in hand with business operatives and technology should persistently be remembered and revered as a ‘Means’. CRM initiatives to connect useful information and encapsulate the capture of useful trends is often true for most system implementations. Ultimately large system initiatives falter because organisations fail to communicate openly and effectively with their employees. Employees should be considered a wealth of information that needs to be tapped as they know your customers.

Analysis

At iSource, we recognize change and make it as smoothly effective and efficient according to business impact and the severity of required change. We’ve seen our clients increasingly acknowledge that large-scale transformation efforts and system implementations impact the entire enterprise and, therefore, require robust organisational transition capabilities.

Today’s companies are much more likely to invest in improvement efforts that span business units and geographic regions. Large-scale change programs commonly include systems integration, Customer Relationship Management, Supply Chain Management and Sales Force Automation. In today’s complex, interdependent organisations, changes in one area can permeate throughout the entire organisation.

Recommendations

As business and technology cycles continue to accelerate, it’s more important than ever for companies to ensure that they have a flexible, adaptable workforce and technology processes that can accommodate change.

The good news is that while the challenge has become greater, so have the tools for managing change. Today’s advanced learning, analytic and information technologies are enabling companies to create more effective training, communications and measurement programs. Five years ago, users of a newly installed sales force automation system received only traditional training, which prepared them to use the new system but provided little insight into how it would affect their jobs. Now, powerful collaboration and simulation tools can help drive maximum value from an installation by teaching users not only how to operate the new tools, but also how the system will impact their day-to-day responsibilities and, above all, their potential to contribute to bottom-line business results.

In the end, a simple maxim is clear: The organisations that proactively manage change as a matter of daily business are much better positioned to succeed than those that continue to view change management as an isolated, "event-driven" activity.

Creating and Sustaining Good Leaders

Background

Are your next leaders to come from the pool of those who have sold the most or who have advanced in the organisation the fastest? Excellent performance is important, to be sure, but organisations need to ask other questions when grooming leaders, guided by four leadership characteristics: adaptive capacity, engaging others, voice and integrity.

Analysis

Creating great leaders involves not just one thing, but a series of things. Specifically, it's about:

• Sourcing, or starting out with the people who show the greatest potential for leadership. Most organisations, hire adults...people who are already of a certain nature and character. Knowing what to look for is critical. Then, as younger professionals begin to mature into potential leadership positions, it's even more important to choose potential leaders based on a rich set of leadership attributes...not just on whether someone has played office politics well or is a good "manager."
• Preparing, or putting in place the right kinds of organisational structures and experiences that we could call "pre-crucible." Two people may go through a similar experience (for example, the failure of a particular project or rejection by an important customer or client). One person can come out of that crucible a better person and a better leader; the other may retreat in failure. Ensuring that more of your people are better prepared for transformational experiences places your organisation in a better position to thrive from excellent leaders.
• Preserving, or making the most out of the crucible experience, by putting in place opportunities for people to understand what they've learned and how they came to learn it. Practices like reflection, storytelling and mentoring can take one individual's experience and make it part of the community of meaning whereby all members of an organisation grow.

Key leadership characteristics:

1. Adaptive capacity: Are there experienced professionals in your midst who have failed and then recovered? Have they become better performers because they have not always succeeded? Do they thrive when working across functional, hierarchical and cultural boundaries? Are they able to admit when they don't know something?
2. Engaging others: Ever notice those people in meetings who don't speak much but command everyone else's full attention when they do speak? Or those people who are good at making others laugh, and at laughing at themselves? You want to pay attention to these people; often they are the ones who spend their energy finding opportunities for themselves and your entire company, rather than finding fault so they can position themselves for advancement.
3. Voice: You can usually tell when someone is speaking authentically instead of imitating someone else's style. They know who they are and what they stand for; their words match their actions. Leaders need to lead, and to do so they must communicate with an authentic voice.
4. Integrity: Look for people whose values motivate them, yet who do not wield those values as a weapon. These people know how to work with value conflicts instead of ignoring or avoiding them.

The four crucibles:

1. Adapting to foreign territory: Many of the leaders interviewed grew personally by moving out of their comfortable home environment and spending time in a different culture. Accordingly, organisations should think about using challenging rotational postings and foreign assignments (even including ones outside the company) to enhance leadership capabilities.
2. Surviving disruption and loss: Not all crucibles need be dramatic, but some are: the loss of a loved one, living through war. No one looks for these experiences, yet organisations can focus on preparing people for adversity and challenge. They can create opportunities for risk-taking, while putting in place safe "failing spaces" where people can learn and reflect upon their experiences and decide what course to take from that point.
3. Enforced reflection: "Growth depends upon ignorance, we're often so busy using our knowledge that we cannot really learn anything. Organisations need to set aside time and resources that encourage critical reflection and introspection. Have people who don't like to do that? Maybe they're not leadership material.
4. Intense mentoring: Many of the leaders we interviewed described their crucible as an intense relationship with a skilled guide and mentor. These mentors were neither formally assigned nor selected simply on the basis of age or rank. Mentors must be carefully selected; they need to be trained in such things as listening and storytelling (if they do not come by these qualities naturally). Companies need to take the time to carefully match mentors and protégé in a non-bureaucratic way.

People & Recommendations

Organisations need to help individuals make sense of their experiences; in turn, the organisation grows through the accumulation of these individual experiences, preserving them for the good of the whole.

Companies can also establish formal learning maps for their people so that their growth follows the recommendation of the community as to how they can best develop. Being a part of a community does not mean being a cog in a wheel; a mentor is someone who says to a protégé, "You matter to this company." A mentor says to a protégé after a difficult experience, "I want you to take some time away to reflect on this. I want you to tell me what this means for you, personally. Because what it means to you is important for the entire company."

In the end, leadership development is largely the product of touching individuals ‘potential leaders’ in a personal way. Organisations who create effective leaders show an intense interest in and care for the individual at all times: when they find them and bring them into the company; when they prepare them through teaching, guidance and mentoring; and when they honor an individual's experience by preserving it within the community of the company.

Engaging Others in a Shared Vision

Leaders do not dictate; they influence others and recruit them to share in a vision of the future. Many of the most public and humiliating leadership defeats can be traced to the failure of executives to galvanize and inspire others. Success inspires some leaders to greatness, yet too often inspires only arrogance in others. When that arrogance is coupled with emotional tone-deafness as in the inability to empathize with others the results are often disastrous.

The Vitality of Now

If there is a common theme running through these human qualities of leadership it is a certain freshness and vitality to the manner in which these leaders approach each day.
In the world of business, change is a competitive advantage and survival often depends on adaptability. But change in the IT environment is not simple. The IT environment is fragile and increasingly complex so it’s hard to know what IT components support which critical business services. And, changes in one area can break things in another.