Just recently, Kirk Sievert, a senior executive and strong advocate of change management, wrote a brilliant blog post on the Five B's of Executive Buy-in to Successful Change. He aptly recommended that change practitioners use the Prosci® ADKAR Model - awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement to guide executives to embrace the change and build buy-in.
Figure 1: Prosci® ADKAR Model- an individual model of change
Awareness - highlights the need for change management to the executives.
Desire - gets the executive to get involved and support change management.
Knowledge - imparts information on how the executive can contribute to change management.
Ability - actionable steps to implement change management.
Reinforcement - sustain change management as an organisational capability.
Here are our four steps to ensure executive buy-in adapted from Kirk Sievert's version:
1. Be prepared and utilise best practices
Preparations is key when you want to convince someone, especially an executive who is sharp and short on time (and maybe a little on temper as well). Do your homework: gather facts, key figures and feedback. You become more confident in front of executives when you know the evidence backing your demands are well-collaborated and consistent. Rehearse what to say so that you say it with ease, clarity, and accuracy. Executives will value your efforts when you do so and you are more likely to get the resources and buy-in you need for change management.
2. Believe, have faith and be proactive
Sometimes, even when you have given your best and did everything right, things might not turn out the way you want it to be. However, this does not mean that all is lost. Kirk Sievert said this perfectly, "Remember you are backed by best practice research and methodologies that can help your organisation achieve higher levels of success." Sometimes, executives may not be convinced immediately because they have never personally experienced the benefits of change management. In more unfortunate cases, you might have executives who have seen poor outcomes as a result of poor change management which would have established deep rooted doubts towards change management.
Believe in your work and research. Be proactive and continue to firmly demonstrate that change management when done right has consistently reaped rewards for many companies.
3. Build a business case
Quantify the benefits and return on investment (ROI) of change management and package it into a powerful and formal business case to craft a compelling need for change management.
If you are not sure how CMC provides a one-day workshop - Prosci® How to write the Business Case for applying Change Management - which gives you a template with a proven structure for presenting the rationale and approach for change management in the format of a formal business case.
This workshop includes:
- Prosci® Change Management ROI calculator to quantify the people-side ROI
- Instructions and guidelines for each section of a formal business case
Or sign up immediately for our upcoming Prosci® How to write the Business Case for applying Change Management workshop in London on 7th June or Singapore on 26th June.
4. Bring in an expert (like us!)
