Category: Project management

The Missing Part of Change Communication

January 30, 2017

Maybe it’s time to reevaluate the effort project teams put into change communication. Pick any study that examines the effectiveness of organizational change and somewhere the results will say that communication is one of the most essential ingredients of success. Some recent examples include: A 2016 Robert Half studyreported that 65% of senior manager respondents said that “communicating … More The Missing Part of Change Communication

What Is Change Management Anyway? (Repost)

September 18, 2015

  A marketing exec friend of mine gave me a call the other day to catch up.   After swapping stories about families and our current work, he finally asked after years of knowing me, “What exactly is change management anyway?” I had to think for a moment before answering him for a couple of reasons.  First, because he’s … More What Is Change Management Anyway? (Repost)

Words Mean Everything

April 17, 2013

Most change leaders are highly aware of the need to manage their messages. Unfortunately, even when helped by outside consultants with green shoes (I couldn’t resist!), most leaders rarely put into practice everything we know about engagement, communication and managing emotions during times of change. Why? Because dealing with the human side of projects is … More Words Mean Everything

Stop Hiding Behind Jargon

June 1, 2011

One of the surest signs that change leaders don’t know what they are doing is the excessive use of jargon.  It’s easy to spot.  Just listen for words like strategic, alignment, partnering, values, sustained, vision, execution, branding, methodology, governance, scalable, global, integrated, empowerment, enablement, or any other intelligent-sounding, yet empty clichés that assume speakers have … More Stop Hiding Behind Jargon

Context is Everything

May 25, 2011

At 7:51 am on January 12, 2007, a man wearing a baseball cap, T-shirt and faded jeans entered L’Enfant Plaza in Washington D.C. amid the morning rush of commuters and quietly removed his violin from its case. The violin was the rare Gibson ex-Huberman handcrafted in 1713 by Antonio Stradivari during the Italian master’s “golden … More Context is Everything

Read the Instructions

May 17, 2011

“When all else fails, read the instructions.” That simple, seven-word warning ought to appear on the instruction manual for everything that comes unassembled.  It should appear in bold face, large font letters on every purchase from Ikea, every home theater system, every backyard play set, and every brightly-colored, multi-part plastic child’s toy packaged in an … More Read the Instructions

The Assumption of Interdependence

March 1, 2011

My view of organization effectiveness starts with two important assumptions: We are interdependent, and as a result We need to collaborate. Interdependence implies that people need to cooperate in order to accomplish what they want.  In the workplace, managers need employees to accomplish results that lead to department or organization success.  Likewise, employees need managers … More The Assumption of Interdependence

A Unified Vision of Change?

September 20, 2010

Change, transformation, re-engineering, BPR, Kaizen, Six Sigma, reinvention, lean, optimization, globalization, standardization, integration, turnaround, downsizing, rightsizing, reductions-in-force, outsourcing, in-sourcing, self-managed teams, learning organizations, and the list goes on. Maybe these employees have the right idea about change.