The Change Agent's Dilemma: How to Influence Change Without Authority

Employee surveys are useful tools for understanding the beliefs, attitudes and opinions of an organization as a whole. Surveys are commonly used in pursuit of change to discover and understand organizational culture, resistance, morale, and a host of other characteristics that can shine the light on opportunities for improvement. However, not all surveys will improve the situation. Listen to hear four warning signs that conducting a survey may do more harm than good. Find more organizational change resources at www.enclaria.com

As a change agent, you work to create organizational alignment around your initiative to make sure everyone is moving in the same direction. In this episode, host Heather Stagl welcomes Jeff Lebow, P.E. of Alignment at Work, LLC to share four questions that when answered ensure alignment. For those of you who are more visual learners, you may access a set of slides depicting the concepts in this episode here (pdf).

Since it's the New Year, you may be renewing your efforts to get approval for a change initiative or project that you want to see happen. Unfortunately, not everyone in your organization has the same understanding or feels as strongly as you do that your project should be implemented – whether it is the entire change initiative, or an enabler such as training or software. While some projects might fly under the radar in the beginning, at some point someone with power has to say “Yes, let’s do this” for the project to continue. I'll share the tips I compiled during my many years as an industrial engineer, when one of my key responsibilities was to justify both capital and human capital projects to gain approval by the leadership team.

Tune in on Tuesday, December 8 to learn 3 myths about organizational change. Change agents who buy into these beliefs may find their initiative stuck in a rut. Learn more about how to influence change in your organization at www.enclaria.com.

Almost everyone in corporate America (and beyond) can relate to having to deal with a boss or another organizational leader who lacked self-awareness. Leaders who are oblivious to their own negative impact on colleagues derail organizational effectiveness. Listen in to hear why having these conversations is a crucial part of the role of change agent. Learn some tips for having these difficult conversations. Find more organization change resources at www.enclaria.com

Accountability is one of those principles of business that is an important foundation of organizational culture but is easily shrugged off as a buzz-word. Ask someone in your organization to define accountability, and you may hear any number of answers, from “I don’t know” to “following the rules.” You might even see some eyes roll. Accountability is rarely explicitly defined, whether for the organization as a whole, or for the departments and teams that work within them. Without a deliberate conversation about what it means to be accountable, it's existence is left to chance. In this episode, I'll share the definitions of different types of accountability, and discuss the fundamental ingredients that are necessary for accountability to exist. Find more organization change resources at www.enclaria.com.

Guest Robert Gold of Tenacious Tortoise, LLC will talk about the workforce measures you need to monitor to ensure that you have the resources you need to implement change.Gold, an experienced management consultant, will describe his framework for making good decisions about the measures that can best help your organization manage its most valuable asset, its people.

This week EnclariaRadio host Heather Stagl welcomes guest Liisa Hardaloupas of ExecuCoach LLC to share her expertise on the subject of resilience. Resilience is the capacity to incorporate and move on from a disruption or change. Tune in to learn how to improve resilience for yourself as well as for other people in your organization who are going through change. If you are interested in learning more about resilience, Liisa is hosting a webinar series on October 15, 22 and 29. Go to www.MasteringResilience.com for more information and to register.

For advocates of organizational change, power is the ability to get things done either by influencing others or by making decisions. Possessing power means that colleagues are more likely to do what you ask, respect your opinion, and follow you in the direction you want to go. Fortunately, power is not something you can buy or take. It can only be given to you by others. In this episode you'll hear ways to earn more organizational power. Find more organization change resources at www.enclaria.com.

Buy-in is the bare minimum level of support you can get for your change initiative. (Think of how many people say they support your project but then act in ways that diminish its effectiveness.) Listen in to hear different levels of support leaders can provide. Find out what's keeping them from doing what you need them to do to keep your project moving forward. For more information on gaining more support for your change initiative, check out the Beyond Buy-in Workbook: .

The success rate of organizational change projects is a dismal 30%. Did you know that for projects that use someone other than the boss as the project manager that success is even more rare? The reason: mismanaged roles and relationships. Learn the common roles within an organizational change initiative, and hear tips for managing the relationships between them. Find more organization change resources at www.enclaria.com.