Active and visible sponsorship is the single greatest contributor to the success of a change initiative and we have 20 years of research to back it up. Since our first Best Practices in Change Management study launched in 1998, participants in our surveys have consistently identified "active and visible" sponsorship as the number one contributor to successful change initiatives. In the most recent study, 72% of respondents who identified their sponsors as "extremely effective" met or exceeded objectives compared to the 29% who had extremely ineffective sponsors.
This tells us that even if you have an impressive change management plan, you're still going to struggle if you don't have a sponsor who is effectively fulfilling the responsibilities of the role.
You can help your sponsors become better at their roles. Sometimes becoming the sponsor on a project requires an individual to change how they do their job. That requires us as change practitioners to make sure they have awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement to make the change. Sound familiar?
The video below is a short segment from our webinar, "Enlist, Engage, and Empower Your Sponsors." Watch this segment or read the details below for advice on using the ADKAR® Model to facilitate the change, "becoming a better sponsor."
The ADKAR Model serves as a framework for how we think about helping our senior leaders to become better sponsors. These are not our 'senior leaders,' with no names or faces. We want to help 'Warren' and 'Deb' and 'Devon' and 'Nikita' and 'Ada' become better sponsors. This is a personal transition, so we'll tee up the ADKAR Model as the frame:
We often use the ADKAR Model around a particular change like rolling out Office 365 or a merger or a move to a new office building. We tend to use it around a particular change initiative. Let's use the ADKAR Model for the particular change called "Becoming a Good Sponsor." We are looking at how we can help Warren and Deb and Devon become good sponsors through the lens of the ADKAR Model:
When sponsors show up and kick off the town hall that they were reluctant to do and the audience seems responsive, you need to remember to swing by and say, ''Hey Warren, thanks for showing up at that town hall. It really had a meaningful impact.''
This kind of reinforcement is crucial to sponsor effectiveness.
Remember that your sponsor is a person who is being impacted by the changes going on around them. Even if they are willing to support you, they may encounter barriers that prevent them from effectively fulfilling their role. If you find that you're struggling with an ineffective sponsor, use the ADKAR Model to assess potential barrier points. Make sure you don't miss the critical steps of explaining what you need them to do and reinforcing their actions with something as simple as a "thank you."
Tim Creasey is Prosci’s Chief Innovation Officer and a globally recognized leader in change management. His work forms the foundation of the largest body of knowledge in the world on managing the people side of change to deliver organizational results.
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