I’m the executive sponsor for a large Salesforce CRM implementation at one of Perficient’s important manufacturing customers. I visited the project team yesterday, and at one point, the client’s senior project sponsor pulled me aside to confidentially discuss an issue. Out of frustration, he said, “David, we do not have executive buy-in and engagement, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
Sure, the CEO approved the project and the CFO is stroking the checks for this million-dollar project, but beyond that, they’re disengaged, including declining (or skipping) the Executive Steering Committee meetings designed especially for them to both keep them abreast of project decisions and also, possibly more importantly, ensure alignment on key decisions that have to be made. Moreover, we know that active and visible executive sponsorship is the number one key to success for a successful outcome of any change initiative (Source: Prosci). This project clearly has a gap here.
So our project sponsor is at a loss on what to do, or if anything can even be done. Of course, I have strategic and tactical ideas, some of which I shared with him, and I’m currently working on others. But, I’m curious, change experts and avid readers of this blog – what would you do? How would you advise this client to proceed?
Let’s get a good discussion going around this, as I believe that at some point, if you haven’t already, you’ll find yourself in this situation!
I’ve been there and dealt with this problem over and over again. I’d separate this problem into two: 1. We need to deal with the lack of buy-in. 2. We deal with ramping up with sponsor engagement. The latter problem is easier to deal with and as change managers we are well-equipped to ADKAR the sponsor into understanding their role, helping them understand their role, creating a change roadmap for them with critical activities that we need them to participate in, etc. But the first problem is a lot more difficult to deal with. And you can address #2 without addressing #1 first. I always look for the root cause of this lack of buy-in. In my experience, it’s difficult to do anything about it until you know WHY the buy-in isn’t there. Is it because the CEO doesn’t understand all of the risks and implications of not changing? Have the business teams spent enough time with the executive sponsor? Is it because the executive sponsor has another conflicting pet project? Pet projects are critical risks. Are there conflicting priorities on the executive team? There has got to be a reason. Knowing the reason helps me understand how to tackle the problem. I’ll post my thoughts on what we can do to help facilitate executive alignment once we know the reason for resistance in a separate comment.
So, what do we do know when know the reason for the lack of executive alignment and buy-in? Depending on the reason, my course of action will be different. In one project where we lacked executive buy-in because the executives had time/availability issue, the project sponsor and the OCM team found a way to hold micro-meetings with the executive sponsors to help them not only understand the deep reasons for the ERP implementation, but also involve them in designing strategic solutions. On another system implementation project, the team and the project sponsor spent countless hours educating the executive sponsor on the need for change. This hesitant sponsor later became the driver of a coalition of sponsors and converted his powerful peer whom only he could have influenced. Using peer pressure/peer influence on that level could be very effective. In my experience, the tactics to get the sponsor(s) buy-in should differ based on the situation. I’m curious to know what others are doing!
Ksenia – Thank you for your comments and insight! It’s clear you’ve been there. I like your varied approaches that are situation-based! This is key, right? If we don’t know the problem and its root cause, how can we know how to effectively address? I think the micro-meetings – brief, quick hitting meetings are a great solution. I suspect that most of us are finding ourselves in the latter situation, where we have to educate the executives on why they should care. The idea of finding the right influencer (and spending countless hours communicating to them, if necessary) is a really tactic! Thanks for sharing.
For me, this becomes a moment of truth for both the organization and the leadership. I’d approach this with a 3 -pronged approach by calculating the investment and the potential impacts from a fiscal perspective and combining that with alignment of the enablers and blockers that impact the realization of those benefits. Finally, I’d layer in education of change and change concepts and deliver this to the the leadership with an accurate and transparent evaluation of their roles, risks, and likelihood of success/failure. As practitioners we have to be willing to tell the truth with confidence and compassion. Too often I see consultants or change practitioners place more importance on keeping the executives happy by being “yes” people rather than being truth people. The only way our industry will preserve itself and gain a permanent seat at the table is to deliver on our responsibility to assess, address, inform, and prepare people and organizations for change – including holding leadership accountable for the role we know they play – and are responsible for- in that change realization.