May 2007 FAQ:

Question: : How can I keep the executives in my company focused on the very change they said the company needs and they said they want?

Answer: Energy conservation. To make change happen, executive intent and energy are both needed. Execs must be clear on what they intend for the company and they must supply the energy needed for change with their verbal support, their presence, their hands-on actions, their time and their access to company resources.

The problem comes when the cycle time of a change maneuver takes longer than the interest span of the executive. Everybody’s interests wander … including executives. While executives are frequently selected for their persistence and ability to focus, interests still wander.

If you have a role in making a change maneuver happen, the ball is in your court to keep executive interest on your assigned change initiative. While the direct way to tackle this problem might be to carefully remind the exec that his attention is needed back on the change target, an equally successful technique is to vary the change target to match executive interest.

For example, a change manager was complaining that his efforts to keep executives excited about a continuous change pilot project were unsuccessful. Executive attention had shifted to another area of the business. In this case, the shift was the problem the company was having in recruiting engineers for a South American operation. When the change manager clicked to the new focus of executive energy, he literally put the pilot project on hold and chartered a new pilot project to validate the use of continuous improvement. Improvement in this new case was focused on “rapidly increasing the effectiveness of overseas hiring.” The execs became interested again because the new pilot project was addressing his focus problem and the change manager was delighted to have a vibrant pilot project again.

Executive energy is THE scarce ingredient in making changes happen. Change managers must conserve that energy at all cost, cleverly innovating ways to align some aspects of the desired change with the executives’ energy focus. Good luck!