Managing Change in a Government Environment is Challenging

Three of the attendees at the Prosci CMP certification program that I ran this week (face to face for the first time in two years, so I was also experiencing change….) were from a national government department. The change project that they brought to the program, on the face of it, should have been relatively straightforward, but when we started to talk about Sponsorship and sponsor involvement, that’s when the wheels started to come off.

The #1 contributor to change success in all eleven of the Prosci Best Practice studies since 1998, and the contributor most frequently mentioned, is an active and visible sponsor. Why would this be a problem for these three?

You need to understand how government works as well as the levels within a Department. In South Africa, a Department (Ministry) is headed by the Minister, followed by one or two Deputy Ministers, then under these are Directors General who then have Deputies. Under these are Chief Directors, Directors, Deputy Directors and then Assistant Directors before you get to the rest of the workforce. Got the picture?

So…. At the beginning of the program we do a brief “who’s who in the zoo” session so that everyone can introduce themselves and give a brief outline of their change project. The project that this group brought was a change from a paper-based system to a digital one with portable devices for data capture that wasn’t tied to a specific location. Nice, we all thought, until we started looking at the PCT (Prosci Change Triangle) scores. Leadership/Sponsorship had a very low score and was waving a big red flag. When I asked about sponsor involvement, the answer was that the primary sponsor was the Minister! Hold that thought.

Let’s move on to the “Five R-s” in the Define Approach stage of the Prepare Approach phase in the Prosci 3-phase process. The third of the “Five R-s” is Resources. In this analysis, the structure and relationship between project management, change management, and the project sponsor are explored; there are four models. The research tells us that 71% of projects where the change management team had adequate sponsor access met or exceeded project objectives while only 21% with little or no access met or exceeded project objectives [Prosci 2020 Best Practices in Change Management].

The reality of the situation here was that the internal prospective change practitioners were an intern (yes, you read that right) and two others with an effective rank in the hierarchy of Assistant Director. In the private sector I have worked in organisations where there was a very formal structure with use of title and surname (Mr Smith, Mrs Brown, and so forth), or "sir" where you were interacting with anyone more than one level above you was the norm; yes, in those days it was unusual to have a very senior woman in that sort of organisation. I have also worked in organisations where I was invited to address the CEO or other board members by first name despite being many levels beneath them; there’s more to showing and being shown respect than use of a title. And, when appropriate, I was able to access some very senior people in the organisation although it did take some effort.

[Hint: chocolates, flowers or something suitable for the person’s PA or secretary can make your life a lot easier! Find out and mark their birthday? No, I am not talking bribery here, just small gestures to get you on good terms with the power behind the throne.]

That said, government ministers and their deputies are very hard to pin down and meet with at the best of times for someone fairly senior in the department and protocol has to be followed. So, what of a change with the sponsor at the very top of the food chain and the change practitioner at the very bottom? How would an Assistant Director get to sit down with the Minister to discuss their role and suggest that they become more visible and active in supporting the change?

But let’s get back to the three attendees who, by now, were wondering whether a successful change was even a possibility. Does this mean that implementing a change in this type of environment is doomed to failure? My response was, “No, not necessarily”. Perhaps some change in terminology would help them overcome the hierarchy and access problem. Perhaps a distinction could be made between, say, “project owner” (Minister) and a person at an appropriate level in the Ministry who would be designated instead as the primary sponsor in this context by the project owner. It would have to be someone with the right degree of authority (positional as well as delegated or referential) to support the change activities, be prepared to exhibit the ABCs of sponsorship, and also be amenable to accepting coaching in their role of being a sponsor as well as maybe a people manager (don’t forget the CLARC roles). And they would have to be accessible too! The downside, of course, is that they would have to take the blame in the event of a lack of success but probably let the Minister bask in the limelight if it went well.

Talking about “sponsors”, a question I’m often asked is, “who is a sponsor versus who is a stakeholder?”. I have a simple definition for sponsor (not an official one) that I demonstrate by holding up a hand and saying, “My people are changing”. A stakeholder has an actual or perceived interest in the change, so a sponsor is also a stakeholder. Although not all stakeholders are sponsors in the true sense of the word, they shouldn’t be overlooked when thinking about sponsorship coalitions and change agent networks. Having a strong sponsor coalition can mitigate the results of weak leadership/sponsorship to a degree and improve the possibility of success for the change.

Challenging situations need a different way of looking at things.