NHRD Journal - National HRD Network

change, preparing the leadership and the
organization at large for the inevitable Change
and then seeing the process of Change through!
In our experience the success of the Change
process is determined by a multitude of factors
of which Top Leadership forms a single most
important element.
Tools to Drive Change - Top Leadership
Engagement
The single most critical role of the HR
Champions in their organizations is to closely
engage with the leadership team and induct
them into the Need for Change. The process of
leading change is a shared leadership
accountability.
Any major change initiative in an organization
has to be guided by the top management team.
The success of a change initiative lies in its
sustenance and being woven into the very fabric
of the organization. This is possible only if the
top management team is as driving and living
the Change that they espouse.
Leadership conversations as well as
demonstration is important. Eg. If
consciousness for personal safety is being
embedded in a organization, then the leaders
at every forum must talk about it, must engage
their teams on safe and unsafe behavior. They
must equally ensure that they personally 'live'
safe behavior, viz, using a safety belt at all times
in their cars, following simple safety norms.
People ultimately practice what leaders practice
and not what they preach! HR at all times must
play the role of the conscience keeper to alert
leaders to the gaps between what they 'say' and
what they 'do'.
Tools to Drive Change - Rewards and
Recognition
What gets rewarded; gets driven!
The most visible cue an organization offers to
its employees' on desirable and undesirable
behaviors is through its rewards structure.
Aside from Leadership team visibly
demonstrating the desirable behavior ("Walk
the Talk"), the organization's reward and
recognition models too must align themselves
around the Change behaviors desired.
Employees are quick to learn what it would
take one to make it up the organization ladder;
• what the top leadership team displays,
• people who get recognized,
• behaviors and initiatives that they get
recognized for,
• individuals who are put on fast track
programs etc
They modify their way of working to align with
the rewarding behaviors to grow faster in the
organization.
Tools to Drive Change - Communication and
Buzz
It is vital to create a lot of buzz and excitement
around any Change initiative. A sense of
curiosity around what is going to Change and
what holds in the offing helps generate a positive
welcoming vibe for the Change initiative being
driven. A simple measure of effectiveness of
Communication is the number of positive
messages and the number of negative messages
that are communicated in the organization's
formal and informal (grapevine) networks
around any Change initiative. If the net of the
two is positive, the success of the Change
initiative is far more assured than if the net is
negative.
Now one can sit and wait for the cows to come
home or play the more proactive role of the
"Change driver" (the HR team) and actively
feed into the network as many positive
messages as possible. The trick here is to
identify the most active nodes which literally
are far more wired in the organization than the
others and feed those with more positive
messages to be drilled down across the
November 2007 NHRD Journal 67