Mastering the Challenges of Leading Change

James Dallas' Mastering the Challenges of Leading Change is an informative, insightful guide to effectively leading the transition through change. While most change management books present case studies about what happened at other companies, this book is based on the author's own experiences managing over 10 transformational and turnaround initiatives, 15 acquisition integrations, and 5 operations/quality shared services centers of excellence. By relating personal lessons learned, how they were subsequently applied, and how you can benefit from them, this book provides a unique first-hand perspective on successful agents of change. You'll learn the qualities and skills required to usher in the new paradigm, and how to break a large initiative into manageable chunks that are more likely to proceed as planned. By crafting your strategy based on proven methods, you're far and away more likely to meet or even exceed your change objectives.

The majority of change initiatives fail because people mistakenly think that a change agent is the same as a project leader. They're not. This book shows you why, and how get the tools, strategies, and people you need at the helm of your initiative to come out the other side much stronger as an organization.

• Learn the critical skills required for effective change management
• Assess the difficulty and politics of a change initiative
• Choose the right people to help implement the change
• See past obstacles and lead effectively in a crisis

Change is occurring within and across all industries, countries, and organizations. They begin with the best of intentions, but most fail to meet their objectives. Don't let your organization be one of the failures. Mastering the Challenges of Leading Change shows you how to plan, lead, and manage a successful transition.

Foreword xi

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction: It Ain’t Easy Being Green xvii

Part I Priorities 1

1 Set a Course for Change 3

The Three Questions 4

Assessing the Culture 6

Ghosts, Hubs, and Mavericks 11

Wisdom from the Front Line 14

Measure Leaders by Their Front-Line Relationships 16

The Importance of Looking Outward 17

The Value of Conviction 20

2 Create the Core Team 23

Who’s Not on the Team 25

The Two Questions That Count 26

Picking the Program Leader 28

Two Key Roles That Are Too Often Ignored 29

Moving beyond “Off with Their Heads” 31

Don’t Partner with Cab Drivers 33

Team Diversity 35

3 Set Expectations and Decide Where to Start 39

A Tour of the Matrix 41

Part II Politics 51

4 Become a Communicator 53

Never Soft-Pedal 56

Brush Up Your Speaking Skills 57

When to Tell Tales 63

5 Craft Messaging That Motivates 67

Become an Amateur Anthropologist 69

6 Overcoming Resistance 78

The Many Faces of Resistance 79

The Fifth Type of Resister: The Machiavelli 81

Removing a Toxic Player 85

Cleaning Up the Sludge 86

Influencing the Narrative on the Front Line 88

Part III People 93

7 Reading Minds and Other Methods for Assessing Progress 95

Read Faces, Not Reports 97

Adjust for Culture 99

Never Kill the Messenger 100

Combating Groupthink with Anonymous Feedback 101

Third-Party Evaluations 103

Don’t Forget Your Hubs 104

8 Alignment and Group Dynamics 108

The Six-Pack Approach 109

Alignment Sessions 113

When and How to Make an Executive Decision 114

Brokering Deals 115

The Importance of Reaching Up 117

9 Master the Humble Art of Building Trust 120

Building Inner-Circle Relationships 121

Step Outside of Your Own Boundaries 124

Eight Practices for Building Trust 126

Put Your Pride to the Side 131

Part IV Perseverance 137

10 Put Out Every Fire 139

Forming a Crisis Management Team 140

Getting in the Trenches 142

In Crisis, Don’t Ever Make It about You 144

How to Elevate a Discontented Team 146

Step into Your Power 150

11 Institutionalize and Leverage Change 153

Why Organizations Lose Their Focus 154

Evolving the Culture 158

Making Metrics Matter 161

The Power of Documentation 162

To Leverage Change, Keep Tearing Down Walls 163

12 Developing Talent as a Sponsor 169

Whom to Sponsor? 170

Awaken New Leaders 174

Develop Their Personal Brand 176

Put Them in the Hot Seat 178

When Sponsorship Fails 179

Provide Air Cover for Risk Taking 180

Epilogue 184

About the Author 187

Index 189

H. James Dallas is an accomplished senior executive with extensive experience as an agent of change in large domestic and international corporate settings. He has more than 30 years of experience bridging the gap between strategy and execution, using IT for competitive advantage, and developing leadership.

If you’ve led projects, you know the three Ts of project management—tasks, timing, and technologies. But, when real change needs to occur to gain a competitive edge, the Ts aren’t enough, which is why on average 75 percent of change initiatives fail. You can elevate your status and increase your value as a change leader by becoming an authority on the four Ps of change leadership explained in Mastering the Challenges of Leading Change.

Written by a change leader with an extensively triumphant track record that includes more than 10 transformational and turnaround initiatives, 20 acquisition integrations, five operations/quality shared services centers of excellence, and three innovation centers—this game-changing guide is conveniently organized around the four cornerstones of the author’s personal approach to managing change: priorities, politics, people, and perseverance. With the casual forthrightness of a trusted mentor, he steps beyond one-dimensional analytics and demonstrates how engaging people, both inside and outside the company, produces the meaningful solutions leading to success. Spearheading change doesn’t come from a formula; instead it emerges from relationships developed with honest communication and informed decision making. James Dallas demonstrates this through firsthand accounts of how he made it happen, repeatedly, in the field. A wealth of concrete best practices packaged in handy checklists will let you apply your knowledge easily and begin mastering the art of:

• Gathering data with an innovative method that leads to greater, more reliable insight
• Picking the core team and prioritizing tasksto move forward quickly
• Delivering the best message, including words to avoid at all costs
• Overcoming resistance to change with proven techniques
• Building trust among your teams
• Managing the group dynamics that can poison your best plans
• Fixing what breaks along the way for continued improvement

Change is essential for a business to sustain growth regardless of industry, country, or organizational structure, but it cannot come from external goals. While the most important takeaways include how to identify and enable the people capable of driving change, by the end, you’ll see that Mastering the Challenges of Leading Change starts with a change in yourself to discover why you do it.