Corporate Change: How Position Rotation Effects Stakeholder Commitment in Corporate Change
For the change professional, stakeholder commitment is a vital component in successful organization change. Ideally, when working through a company change, the shareholders will represent a fixed cast of players that have commitment to seeing the process through from beginning to end. This situation avoids having the project fail because of a learning curve for new shareholders and the occasional Johnny-come-lately second guessing that can go on when a new person enters a project halfway through. However, the growing trend in the corporate world is to use position rotation to enhance employee value.
While, generally, position rotation is good for companies, it can have an obvious result on stakeholder dedication to a corporate change process. There is no set period for position rotation. It can run as short as eighteen months, but the average is three years before lateral rotation or promotion. Now, if the shareholders the change professional is looking to enlist are early in their position, getting commitment for a corporate change project is simpler. However, if they are late in their revolution, gathering this commitment can be harder.
Their hesitance may be a simple case of not needing to stick the subsequent person with a project they do not want or will not believe in. If they know who will be taking over their position, they may wish to discuss it before consenting. In essence, they are joining in good career politics by not leaving the bag in somebody else’s hands.
The other probability is they don’t wish to sign off on a project only to have it come back to haunt them later. Statistically, change initiatives have a poor success rate. The potential stakeholder may be considering their legacy and do not need to be associated with a potential failed project; particularly if they are going to be leaving before the project ends. The change pro should be acutely aware of these considerations when approaching possible stakeholders.
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