Monday, September 23, 2013

Sustaining Excellence for the Long Term

Here are few ideas around how to sustain excellence for the long term.

Sustaining Excellence is synonymous with Sustainable Change Management. The Change Management foundation hinges on Enlightened Leadership, Great Project Management, and Excellent Talent Management. The Change Management Model calls for 1). Determine the need for change, 2). Prepare and plan for change, 3). Implement the change, and 4). Sustain the change. World-wide organizations have adopted Eight Stages of Change Management from Prof. John Kotter, a professor emeritus from Harvard Business School.

Sustaining excellence is the responsibility of leadership to steer the organization in a right direction and be there along with your people throughout the excellence journey. Now this is a tall order. This will require leaders who clearly communicate need for change and coach people to remain on the mission to implement change.

To implement the change successfully, there is a need for great project management. Nearly 70% of change initiatives fail. The main reason for this failure rate is lack of good project management. One needs to implement aggregate project plan to inventory all the projects in the organization pipeline, prioritize those projects according to importance to customers, and allocate proper resources to complete those selected projects/initiatives. And have periodic reviews to assess project performance and risks.

Ultimately to sustain the change, one needs to select and nurture the talent. To effectively manage human capital, leaders need to create engagement through participation, external motivation, and development initiatives. People who are sustaining the change must be recognized and rewarded.

In summary, it is a challenge to sustain excellence. The roadmap is already there, however, organizations that execute the change management well will succeed, and rest will perish.

I am eager to learn about your views on sustaining excellence for the long term.