FEBRUARY 25, 1999

IT'S TEN O'CLOCK...DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR SPONSORS ARE?
Securing and Sustaining Sponsorship for Change
C. Ken Weidner, II, Ph.D.

Thanks to Ken Weidner for his presentation on Sponsorship at the February meeting. I had not known Ken before and appreciated his ability to wrap words around the muck that is organization and change. True to his own word, he came with more questions than answers -- and that's how he left me. Some answers, however, showed up the very next day in a conversation with Susan Black. I hope what follows will give you a taste of both.

What Ken's presentation did for me was highlight a core paradox, which left me wondering if sponsorship is not just a synonym for substance. That is, if a change project involves real business needs, personal passions, strategic importance, and the like, then sponsorship emerges quickly because the work is so important to everyone. On the other hand, if there's no real need, passion or import, then why bother with a change charade? Simple enough, so far.

But what about those times of real need, passion or import, when no one -- not even the chief -- believes that he or she can speak the truth about pressing needs, their own personal passion, or how important a situation is for everyone's well-being? This is where we need to create our own sponsors -- but these are also the places where we're being asked to change the rest of the organization before we change the leaders OR to run the risk of trying to change leaders before we change the rest. (Alas, always to change other people!) Our paradox, challenge, bind (and real value, I think) comes when we must begin a change project by creating leadership or sponsorship, a change project in itself, when we don't yet have sponsorship ourselves. We must find ways to create practical power in places where it is elusive or just plain feared.

My own most important learning from Ken's presentation came out of the space he opened at the very beginning of his talk, when we identified the "Critical Success Factors" for any change project. (See below for the list we created together.) Ken used the list we created together to talk more about organization boundaries, behaviors in relationships, project targets, personnel shifts, and information needs. My guess is that that we can use this same list as our own springboard to address these issues with our clients. Perhaps we can sometimes even use just his question, and build a similar list in partnership with our clients. Could it be that creating and sustaining sponsorship is as simple, daring and difficult as asking for it?

Looking at the list, it's easy to see that these things are all somehow necessary. When presented in checklist form, as the basis for a discussion about how we're going to provide all of these things, we automatically address the questions Ken went on to describe. If we work with our clients to identify and enroll 2-3 people in the organization who can provide each of the items on the list, we will easily reach the level of sponsorship that Ken suggests. This also allows us to identify which of these critical success factors we can provide, even as outsiders. This makes our value that much clearer and our eventual replacement that much more straightforward (assuming we really are willing to be worked out of this situation). Finally, the openness engendered in this approach models and encourages exactly, I think, the behaviors Ken helped us identify as most effective in these kinds of relationships, especially if we revisit it with some regularity.

Many thanks to Ken for raising this issue of sponsorship and opening the space to talk about critical success factors (and the rest) -- and to Susan for asking the question that invited me to make some conclusions I expect to integrate into my own practice.

Michael Herman

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS IN SECURING
CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP

Financial Backing
Influence Strategic Direction
Define/Adjust Scope of Project
Personal Passion, Emotional Appeal
Create Urgency, Movement
Legitimacy, Staying Power
Prepare People for Action
Create Early, Visible Successes
Ability to Share Ideas, Decisions
Guts to Take Risks
Access to Information, Systems
Be Present Early and Often
Clear, Consistent Communication to All Levels
Credibility and Confidence
Attention, Time at All Levels