Ever felt that your change initiative is being rail roaded by people with different agendas and motives than you? Well you are not alone. Truth is the larger the change initiatives reach across the organisation the greater the impact on separate groups who by default have different agendas, priorities and responsibilities. They all have a vested interest in the change, though not all may want the same outcome. For example if the change initiative makes it easier for the sales staff to sell items by moving a lot of the detail required to fulfill the sale to another department, sales will be for the change but the other departments who now need to take on additional work will likely be against it.
It’s key to understand and manage all these different expectations and agendas up front, or else you will be blindsided by them during the initiative. By aiming to gain consensus up front allows you to understand how different people perceive the change as well as their expectations. This allows for misunderstanding or differing priorities to be revealed, which can be better managed in order to find compromise. If compromise can’t be achieved it can at least be elevated up to more senior management who are sponsoring the change to help gather the necessary agreement, especially if you don’t have enough clout in the organisation to do so.
