Question

Please share any best practices from your experience in regard to leadership and/or change management. Quality is the major concern for this threat of discussions. Choosing the right topic for your input is important.

Answer 1

In the role of leadership, one of the most challenging task arrives is when you have to lead a Change organization because one needs to be ready to face the challenges, from both, within the organization and from that external to the organization.

I was working in an Indian Public sector bank. There was an implementation of the Core-Banking solutions system (CBS) in the entire banking system of the developing country of India in order to create more efficiency in the system keeping in pace with quality of the service along with the time taken to deliver the same. This system came into existence more than a decade ago. However, the issue concerned more with the Public-sector unit employees, like that in my case, who were more comfortable working with paper and pen and other stationery rather than to migrate to the Computer system and automation. Especially, the matter grew worse with the Baby-boomers who were on the verge of retirement, to pick up this activity of change and training to learn the basic and advance skills of the computers all from the scratch and then to adapt to the banking software that is essential to implement the CBS. This is where, I, as a leader, was assigned with the task of influencing and training the employees of my Bank branch upon the same.

During the Project implementation, a lot of training, at times, even coercion in subtle terms, went into dealing with the bank employees but gradually, they became part of this essential training module and started realizing the ease and comfort of the CBS. By now, the Public sector employees of the banking system in India, are as much conversant with the system as that of any private banking player.

Personally, as a Leader myself for my Bank Branch, my Project involved me to undertake the following steps that in order to optimize the willingness of the bank employees to develop their skill set to use the computer system:

• Implemented the change competency to train the employees in an extremely specialized work. This was the first step that was needed to be implemented in my organization to create a culture of innovation and change wherein the goals of Planned Change would include improving the ability of the organization to adapt to changes in its environment while changing the behavior of individuals and groups in the organization since people are usually resistance to change. Hence optimizing the willingness of our employees to possess a particular skill set.
• Next I did was to adapt to the Kotter’s Eight-Step Plan for Implementing Change for Innovation that empowers others to act on the vision by removing barriers to change and encouraging risk taking and creative problem solving. Kotter’s eight-step plan helped in ensuring the smoothness in the training process.
• Also the following options were utilized to develop the employee’s skill sets. These steps also vouched for willing cooperation of the employees towards the training process to a great extent:

• Education and communication
• Participation
• Facilitation and support
• Negotiation
• Manipulation and cooptation

In this manner, the Project was successfully undertaken and carried out by me in the Organization.