Transformation Planning and Managing Complex Change
Even though Mary Lippitt of Enterprise Management Ltd., a consulting and training firm, has created the managing complex change framework a while back, it is still relevant today.
Enterprises and business leaders are grappling with change, particularly the tumultuous and foundational change spurred by digital and cognitive technologies.
In this elegant framework, Dr. Lippitt provides the recipe and the ingredient for managing complex change.
It takes five dimensions to initiate and inculcate transformational change.
Vision + Skills + Incentives + Resources + Action Plan
Vision is all about the guiding principles, the north star, and the leadership buy-in and commitment to change.
Skills are the functional, technical, and emotional competencies necessary to manage the transformation.
Incentives answer the foundational question, “What is in it for me?” Rewards need to be at various levels – individuals, teams, business units, and the enterprise itself.
Resources refer to human resources, budgetary resources, raw material, tools and methodologies, frameworks and templates. A real transformation necessitates a vast array of resources.
The action plan is a thoughtful roadmap with incremental and sequential steps and clustering of similar pieces of work into logical work streams and significant milestones.
If vision is missing, despite all other ingredients, chaos and confusion will reign.
If skills are missing, it will lead to a lot of anxiety of who will do the work and how will we do the job?
If incentives are missing, there will be significant resistance to change as people will not have the motivation to take the risk and adapt to a new normal.
Without resources, the transformation will peter down into fits and starts and may underachieve and underwhelm resulting in frustration.
Without an action plan guiding the change effort, there will be several false starts.
In essence, managing complex change requires all five ingredients in right amounts and at the right time.
Do you agree with Dr. Lippitt’s framework? Or do you think something is missing or needs reorganization?
Next time when your firm embarks on a transformation endeavor, whip out Dr. Lippitt’s excellent framework and start asking whether you have all the ingredients in the mix to make the transformation feasible and possible.
Additional Resources:
A detailed guide to change management.
Read Wisdom Stories from Thought Leaders.
Books by Dr. Mary Lippitt:
