I have a pretty good change network. I often ask advice of my network colleagues and occasionally am honored to be asked for my advice.
I network-ee of mine [pretty experienced in terms of multi-sector and variety of programmes etc] recently interviewed for a senior change role, in a new department of an organisation. Essentially they would be responsible for developing the change capability, strategies, frameworks etc.
A key part of the role was how they would approach educating the board / senior management on their importance in change management and how that supports delivery of benefits and ROI. This not only requires strong theoretical knowledge of how change management supports programme delivery and ROI, but practical application of both change delivery and education of senior executives.
My network-ee got in touch to have a chat about the interview feedback. They were the preferred candidate, but the organisation appointed a late internal applicant who had only a little change experience, more than likely a PM / BA. Partly down to cost [they didnt want an extra salary going out], and partly due to the belief they needed to “prove” the role before making a senior appointment.
There are of course a multitude of variables in deciding who to appoint into a role. But I work in change, so obviously change is special. The thing with change, is that organisations view it [wrongly] as a “nice to have”; its always the first to go when a programme has budget pressures. In reality there is 1 opportunity to prove value with change management, if you have a change manager on a poorly landed change, then “clearly change isn’t needed”.
We know that excellent change management can deliver ROI of 143% and makes programmes 25% more likely to deliver on or below budget. This is just the practical application of working on a programme and completely negates the requirement to build out the change capability in a new department. In my mind, appointing a lower capability individual to prove the need is backwards thinking and more likely to dis-prove the need and something I wouldn’t recommend to clients I work with. Additionally the reality is that with a short term rather than strategic view the loss in ROI, poor adoption of programmes etc will vastly outweigh the value of appointing experienced change manager from the outset.
I’d obviously be interested in anyone else’s thoughts. Either as someone that’s interviewed and made this decision, someone thats been in an organisation where this decision was made or someone that just things I’m talking waffle…
