Sponsorship Checklist - best practices in managing change

Prosci conducted change management benchmarking studies in 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2005. The number one response by participants when asked what was the greatest overall contributor to project success in each of the four studies was active and visible sponsorship. Do your sponsors know this best practice finding?

Prosci's 2005 Best Practices in Change Management benchmarking report revealed three key roles for senior leaders: 1) Participate actively and visibly throughout the project; 2) Build a coalition of sponsorship with managers and peers; and 3) Communicate effectively with employees. In this study nearly 50% of study participants ranked their sponsor as having a moderate to poor understanding of their role.

The first key role of sponsors has several components. The first component is active and visible. Effective sponsors cannot stand on the 'side-lines' - they must be involved in more than just signing their names on the project charter. The second is throughout the project. Sponsors must stay engaged, from the beginning when a project is launched clear through the end when the project is completed and transitioned over as 'business as usual'. Effective sponsors cannot disappear or remain in the background. Again, nearly 50% of study participants said their sponsors were not active and visible during the change.

The second role of sponsors relates to how they interact with the other leaders necessary to make changes successful. In the Prosci change management methodology, a sponsor diagram is drawn to show which other business leaders and managers are needed for the change to be successful. The primary sponsor must build relationships and commitment with these other key leaders.

As noted in the communication checklist, the sponsors of change are one of the two preferred senders of communication messages. Your sponsors need to directly communicate with employees about the business reasons for change, risks of not changing and why the change is happening now.

Participants in the 2005 study cited a failure to engage personally - including not participating through the entire project, abdicating their role to lower level managers or the project team and failing to communicate the reasons for change with immediate employees. Project teams face tremendous difficulties when they have a sponsor who does not personally engage in the change.

Managing resistance is a key role of senior leaders, managers and supervisors. Your sponsor needs to be prepared and ready to deal with resistance in the organization - especially from other senior or mid-level managers. As a change manager in the organization, you will need to coach senior leaders on how to identify the root causes of resistance and how to engage and manage resistance when it happens.

Celebrating successes - even small, short-term successes - is an important part in building support and momentum for your changes. Sponsors play a key role in recognizing employees both publicly and privately.

Sponsors influence priorities through their behaviors, actions and the communications they send. Sponsors must show both their own and the organization's commitment to a change if they expect employees throughout the organization to become engaged.

'Flavor of the month' describes a situation where organizations are constantly introducing and abandoning initiatives - in essence they have a short attention span. A 'flavor of the month' situation where new initiatives are being launched every month and not being followed through creates a very difficult background for creating any meaningful change. In the organization, sponsors are responsible for launching new initiatives and ensuring that new projects are not just the next 'flavor'.