Consultant, Facilitator, Interim Change Management

Perspectives at work can help leaders lead through change.

In my experience as both an external and internal consultant and facilitator as well as a team lead, the knowledge or intentions of leaders are usually not lacking. However, between day-to-day business and on-top processes, the load can outgrow the best shoulders. In particular, the often-useful step back can become a difficult exercise to make time for quite as often as it is helpful. Here an extra mind and set of hands focused on change management/facilitation/sparring can assist in navigating the on-top load of a transformation more effectively.

How we work together can range from a simple one-off consulting or measure such as a workshop over a longer term on location or online help on demand to full process facilitation in your premises.

Approaches and formats are as diverse as the fabric of organizations and the challenges of each situation. I am confident that we’ll find the right measures for your case.  

If you would like to talk to me about the situation you are looking to have support for, have other specific questions, or speak to the individual behind the offer, please don’t hesitate to contact me. 

If you wish to look into more detail of possible formats before we speak, below are some often-used formats in review from my perspective for your inspiration and orientation: 

Transformation/Change Process Consulting and Facilitation.

A process-long or otherwise long-term cooperation in which I take responsibility for or support the people side of change. The earlier the involvement of a ‘people hat’, the better but even ‘in the thick’ of a change a lot can be done to reduce unnecessary friction and gain critical buy-in.

Any of the below sketched-out measures (and others) can be part of a process we decide on.  In some cases a single measure can serve as the impulse needed. In other cases, rather than me facilitating any of them individually upon your briefing, we work out the change process together either in a change architecture or in a more agile way of working toward your goals.

Workshops:

A long-known, simple yet strikingly effective tool to gather and connect relevant people and their perspectives on a matter.

• • great dialogue starter in many situations 
  • excellent way to take the temperature along the process
  • Transfer-friendly way to release a change initiative into the, hopefully not too wild, reality it has to survive in.
  • Good for allowing the people involved in a change to conclude the guided part of it, consolidate forces for its sustainability in all-day business, see and, ideally, celebrate the results of a concerted effort.
  • Some topics or moments in a process require an in-person setting, others can be done online or in hybrid formats.

For smaller or more L&D-directed matters: It is not rare for a diffuse problem or a training request to turn into a workshop that either resolves it or significantly sharpens the view on the if, the what and the how of training or other indicated measures. 

Stakeholder Interviews and Other Large-Reach Feedback Formats:

Ideally, a management system or way of working in an organization assures some flow of information in both directions of the hierarchy and between the relevant functional levels and external partners.

If this flow of information is a work in progress or a specific change-need moves into focus, ad-hoc formats are a sensible extension of what can be done in workshops to a larger base.

• • Very helpful to understand what matters to the greater population in a business or any fraction of it.
  • Thus great way to understand the status of overarching transformations in a wider base of people.
  • As well as to gather information from the experts of the company’s daily business before planning the specifics of changing it.
  • And, as resistance to change is often an expected reaction, a way to gain insight into what a planned change will be up against and what can help both business and people to come out as productive and unscathed as possible.

I cannot overstate the value of people being heard and, where possible, recognizing if minuscule fragments of the perspectives they added in measures they’ll be at the receiving end of. By far not only because of how different this makes people feel and can open them to a change needed. But also because of the value that lies in the very specific knowledge of key processes and functions that only employees can deliver. 

In my experience, stakeholder interviews are the more powerful tool to inform a specific endeavor. These require rigorous expectation management – which in turn I have not seen to limit their outcome. 

Online-Standby-Change Consulting: 

As individual in format as the possible tasks that can be the subject. From bird-view transformation monitoring over change implementation to strategy implementation. 

• • A great way to offer ongoing, low-key support for staying on track.
  • Especially for the leadership levels furthest away from deciding over a change yet closest to executing it.
  • Also for top management circles, external facilitation is of support to keep all perspectives, also from other levels in view, in ongoing decision-making processes.

Train the Trainer/Ambassador Concepts

For the implementation and sustainment of any change need, internal ambassadorship is key. 

A fast as well as economic way to carry information and skills needed into the larger workforce, train the trainer approaches with internal or – in a geographically distributed structure – local external trainers. 

Internal ambassadors with the right information, tools, and backing are the most effective measures to make a change process work and last. 

On-The-Job Simulations

When it comes to implementation, a lot of change resistance can stem from insecurities, the power of habit, and the rush of all-day business continuing. Going right where the details of a change need to be implemented and simulating this can help greatly in overcoming the above hurdles. Sometimes external guidance or instruction can help, sometimes it is sufficient to make simulations part of a change map. 

A Review and Adaptation of Existing (Change) Communication Tools and Formats You and Your Leaders Use

Sometimes an outside view, some benchmarks, and nudges can be productive even without further long-term cooperation. 

Tailor-Made (Micro) Trainings

Most changes to fully anchor in your organization require some degree of training. Technical or company and position-specific training we would simply integrate in a change plan or I could help find trainers for it. In some cases, it can make sense that I facilitate train-the-trainer formats or leadership training specific to change needs. 

Where lone-standing traditional training faces a significant transfer gap, well-embedded into other measures or in the right (possibly bite-sized) measure training can be very effective. 

Knowledge/Skill/Transfer Formats

The structured and facilitated transfer of skills and knowledge can be a useful addition to other change measures. Structured interviews to garner and hand over undocumented knowledge I have come to appreciate as one of the undeservedly secret tools that can make a significant difference for success in a whole array of situations in which people change, leave, or enter positions. 

Some of these above formats require personal presence, others I am happy to accommodate either in person or online. I am familiar with working with both more traditional project architectures and (more) agile processes.

If you would like to go more creative in approach, Perspective at Work is also experienced with multimedia story worlds for experience-driven learning and communication.