Yesterday I tweeted that I was going to lay low for a bit because I had stirred some things up. Without going in to too much detail, I commented on an internal blog post that referenced a big corporate change that I didn’t believe any real change was going to occur as I had not seen any modeling of the desired behavior.
Well, did that set off a flurry of activity! And of course that was the whole point of my comment right? And I only said what everyone else was thinking, as many people came to thank me. What happened next is that my feedback was publicly acknowledged, I was thanked for speaking out, and I was even asked to help with the change effort.
What I want to know is, have you ever seen this happen? A big change is initiated, there is a robust series of important communications, yet the expected behavior is not modeled for others to follow. I am somewhat surprised that this happens as often as it does. Just do a quick search on google and you will find all kinds of references to instances of this happening. You will also find that in most cases one of the most frequent recommendations for implementing a SUCCESSFUL change, is for the leaders to show others what this change looks like. They need to lead the way by doing what they say they are going to do, and asking others ” how can I help you” ?
This is where my #creative or #insane brain starts to churn. What if our Communications Plan had a section on the modeling of the behaviors? Included would be a description of what the modeled behavior needed to look like, who should do it, how often, what the expected results are and the success measures? Easy peasy.. it’s not rocket science. And then…well who needs a change management plan right? 
Just sayin….
