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Strategic
Change
Who Needs It?
Strategic Change Consulting benefits organizations
that are at a crossroads and requiring change. For
example, a company might:
► Be growing quickly and
need to establish new ways of working.
► Suffer from eroding
profits or market share, or some other downward
trend, and need to create a
plan for turning the business around.
► Have recently acquired a
new business and need to integrate the two
businesses quickly.
In all of these cases, and many others,
organizations need a comprehensive plan for moving
forward.
What’s Covered in the Strategic Change Process?
The key areas explored in the process are outlined
in The Cultivation Corps’ strategic change model:
|
Current Situation |
InVisioning |
Obstacles / Challenges |
Strategic Actions |
Tactical Planning |
|
Where are
we now? |
Where do we want to be? |
What barriers
are in the way? |
What big actions must we
take? |
What’s the work plan? |
|
• Internal
Analysis
• External Analysis
|
• Vision
Statement
• Key
Objectives |
|
• Major Actions
(For addressing or overcoming obstacles) |
• Critical
Projects
• Goals
• Timelines |
Following is more detail about each phase of the
process:
Current Situation—“Where are we now?”
In this initial stage our team gets input from all
stakeholder groups, and then provides leadership
with a 360-degree view of the situation. As a
non-threatening third-party we are able to get
honest feedback from staff members who may not feel
comfortable saying what they really think to their
managers. Once we have established “where we are
now,” we tailor the rest of the process to ensure
that it produces the desired outcomes and supports
the culture leadership is striving to create.
InVisioning—“Where do we want to be?”
This initial stage is called InVisioning because we
work with you and your team to bring your dream of
the future into vision, identifying the end to which
you aspire and out of which can grow strategy and
tactics. The Cultivation Corps facilitates your team
through a directed brainstorming process that leads
to the definition of the group’s shared dreams and
core objectives. And we ensure that your dream is
communicated as a compelling statement with defined
goals and objectives.
Obstacles/Challenges—“What barriers are in the
way?”
Once we have identified where we are going, we
examine what is in our way. The fastest way to a
plan of action that will actually work is by
identifying the obstacles that block that vision
from becoming a reality. When this step is skipped,
people’s ambitious plans are built on imagination,
not in the reality of the current business. When the
plan is built around real obstacles that everyone
knows exist, the plan is more realistic and people
are more energized.
Strategic Action—“What big actions must we take?”
In this phase the group determines what action must
be taken to overcome the barriers, either to move
over, through or around them. The result is
generally four to five major strategic directions
that all can rally behind. And since these actions
are developed collaboratively, people at several
levels in the organization helped create them and so
understand why they are critical to pursue if the
desired outcome of the change is going to become a
reality.
Tactical Planning—“What’s the plan?”
A tactical plan translates the vision and strategy
into manageable tasks so there are clear and
measurable actions that must be achieved in a
predetermined timeline. This work creates a game
plan that leads to action and that can be used to
measure success toward the realization of the dream.
The Cultivation Corps partners with businesses to
create a work plan that locks your team into a
timeline to realize your dream.
The Cultivation Corps also provides support in the
two phases that follow Tactical Planning: Execution
(implementation of the plan) and Review
(periodically evaluating and adjusting the strategy
and plan). These phases are critical, but they are
not part of the initial intervention, and so not
identified in the above model.
What Makes The Cultivation Corps’ Change Process
So Effective?
One of the challenges to implementing change
effectively is that the changes must be applied
throughout the organization while the business
continues to operate at full throttle. Our process
is custom designed to work with your business, your
business structure, and within your culture.
Although we have a general outline for the process,
we are not wedded to it as the only solution to
getting to the outcome our clients need. We use it
as a starting point and alter it as we work with and
learn from our clients.
Another reason the process is so successful is that
it involves people throughout the organization.
Since numerous people in the organization must be
mobilized to make the changes a reality, we’ve
developed a very participatory approach
that gets those people involved in the planning. So
by the time the tactical plan is developed, people
understand and are committed to it. Senior leaders
don’t need to sell it to their people, they just
need to support them as they implement it.
If you’d like more information about The Cultivation
Corps’ approach to Strategic Change, contact
David@CultivationCorps.com. |
