Understanding the Levers of Change

As part of my presentation “Sustaining Change – Executing a Sustainability Plan” at the ASQ Lean and Six Sigma Conference tomorrow I’ll be talking about levers of change.

Change Management practitioners usually talk about seven levers:

1. Infrastructure – Investing in the tools, processes, and other resources that employees need to be successful with the change initiative.
2. Walk the Talk – active leadership is about ownership; it includes making the business case clear, modeling behaviors, clearing obstacles and making course corrections.
3. Reward and Recognition – acknowledgement and compensation for employees who work to move the initiative forward
4. Mass Exposure – getting out information about the change through broadcast messages and other communication pathways
5. Personal Contacts – creating opportunities for advocates to share their experience of the change with peers who feel disengaged
6. Outside advocates – bringing in resources (internal or external) to gain expertise for the change initiative
7. Shift Resisters – moving people to areas less affected by the initiative.