Sustainable Change Management

The key connectors that hold the trust networks in place in any organizational culture have the most to lose when a change is proposed. The reason for this behavior is straightforward. The way things are “now” is what has made these connectors so central in defining the cultural values and the current state of affairs. Unless these “key connectors” can be persuaded to support the change initiative, they will placidly acquiesce and then after one year, the culture will drift back to the “way things were.” Generally most organizational leaders will tap the “usual” suspects (their own network of “go to” people) and consequently, all their change efforts will be for naught because their network is not the network that will produce lasting change. Therefore, in order to produce sustainable change, the trust networks of the key connectors must be identified and then leveraged. First the key connectors are identified and brought in to the change efforts early-on to help shape the change initiative. Generally, they are used to populate strategy and change teams. These key connectors are trusted, but “unusual” suspects. As such, they are often not tapped, because they are unseen and therefore lie dormant until a threat to the general well-being of the culture emerges. This is where NetForm analysis can provide a lasting solution before an emergency necessitates it. NetForm has algorithms that select certain networks from the seven network questions and differentially “weights” the key connectors (Hubs, Pulsetakers and Gatekeepers) with different values depending on their networks. Only certain connectors in certain networks are used to neutralize resistance to change and then communicate the positive values of the proposed change. This approach has been used by the US Army, HP and IBM.