______________
Change management is not something you have to or even can do on your own.
The problems we face individually are near identical (regardless of size
or type of institution, ineffective and out-of-date legacy
is a mind-numbing, budget busting experience for everyone and actually
more acute the larger you are).
Historically,
that (i.e. "change management initiatives") was an exercise that was
largely bounded within the institution and while we had much we could
learn from one another, at home we were quite on our own.
Of
necessity, change management is now a communal task, demanding that we
find ways that allows
us to speak with amplified (shared) voice to both internal and external
constituencies because without it, we will simply not be heard.
_______________
I had to think about this for a while, as it changed my perspective for how I was considering change management. I had to step back and ask "so what
is keeping me (and my organization) from participating in collective
change management?" One the big obstacles is the cost of participation in those communal efforts.
My thought process started with consideration for places
where I think change management works for our campus. Actually, as I reflected on
that, I think we do that pretty well in our ERP environment with our ERP
community (Banner). Not great, to be sure, but acceptable and
adequate. One reason is that the community has broad campus representation, not just IT representation.
But then my brain-dots flowed to "what is change management?". And the next brain-dot was that there is an internal perspective and there is an external perspective.
Things
happen outside our institution that affect and impact what we do;
the news on 3/7/14, for example, about Google Classroom may require we think about
that option for learning management. Other things, like Heartbleed,
require that we take a set of technical actions. In neither case was there an opportunity for us to change the course of action by having a communal
voice.
In other settings, where we have elected to be part of a
community, we have had greater success in having a communal voice that
leads to a technical direction or implementation. Our relationship in
Apereo is one such avenue for us. We have significant benefits working
with that community providing uPortal, uMobile, and CAS initiatives. Another
positive community is the REN-ISAC, which gives us specific security
directions and to which we can raise our own voice. For the community to be successful in change management, we have to be part of the community in advance of, and in anticipation of, change.
Internally, change management is less about a vendor
or product direction, and more about getting our internal community on
board a change train. I suspect my success as a CIO as evaluated by my
campus constituents is more about measuring my success on the internal
change train. It is about presentation and management skills: delivery,
communication, advocacy, negotiation, listening, reacting. Also, the pace of the action needs to match the pace of change:
So to demonstrate change leadership, each special change diamond needs careful review:
- Is there a community to which we belong that can help with an action response?
- Which path is more cost effective: communal response or individual response?
- Which path matches the pace of response to the pace of change in the most effective manner?
- Is this a change initiative that requires broad campus participation or narrow IT participation?
If I reflect on those questions, I may be able to lead through change pathways most effectively. Are there other points to the diamond?
