I was recently approached by someone living on the other side of the world, asking for some advice on career pivot strategies - how to go about changing from one career to another, potentially very different one. They seemed to want to move out of consulting, into a career where they could be more directly involved in running a business.

I must admit, I sat and thought hard about this at first, as the person asking the question gave me the impression that whatever I told them, they may actually use what I suggested. I found myself trying to form an answer that, in the end, would be far too complicated.

I stopped over-thinking. "Keep it simple", I told myself. What would you do if you were the one asking the question? Well, here is the [rewritten] answer I gave...

"By the nature of your question, I am going to assume that you are currently in a consulting role and, therefore, my understanding of what you are asking is to move from the "advisory" type of activity found in traditional consulting organisations, into the "implementation" portion of a consulting firm -- am I correct?

If that is not correct, then I am going to assume that you are looking to move out of consulting altogether, and into a business environment where more direct and pragmatic general business skills and experience are required.

Either way, at a high level the principles are the same - differences, however, may exist at the 'details' level of how you transition your career. Fundamentally, the process is quite simple and whatever you read about career pivoting should say roughly the same thing.

There are broadly three positions: the here and now, where you want to be, and the bridging of the gap between these two places.

Your 'Here & Now' - The Current State

Understand what you are good at now;Understand what you are not so good at now;Ask yourself if what you are not so good at now, can be addressed (fixed or improved) in the short term (within a year); andWill addressing these things be relevant to what you want to do?

Take some time writing this all down. Walk away and then come back to it again - more than once. Make sure it is accurate and real.

Your 'Where I Want To Be' - The Desired State

Know your desired state very well. It is critically important that you thoroughly understand the world/life you are aiming at. Understand that your desired state will change over time - take this into account when considering this first item. Do research on what the future holds for the environments in which you want to operate; as well as what it takes to compete on knowledge, experience and outcomes in the areas you have identified;Once you have this knowledge, understand the "gap" between what is required in your desired-state world, and what you possess now, in your current-state world. Identify the detailed actions and outcomes you will need to take to close this gap;You will need a three-stage strategy: a short-term strategy, medium-term strategy (which follows on from your short-term one), and the end-game: your ultimate goal. The short-term strategy is to get yourself into a your chosen role or environment - even if it is 'at the bottom'. The medium-term strategy aims at moving up the ladder in that field. The ultimate aim is to excel in that field;Categorise the detailed actions you identified in desired-state item 2 according to short-term, medium-term and the long-term. Set specific and clear objectives for each action. This is your plan.

Again, write these down, walk away and come back to it a few hours or days later to make sure it still rings true. Take your time over this. This is your Nirvana for which you are making preparations!

Your 'Call to Action' - Getting Things Done

Now, if you are happy with your plan, all you now need to do is: to do it.

Remember, no plan is perfect. Keep checking your plan and revise your current and desired states to make sure that your plan is still relevant to those positions. Constant monitoring also helps to encourage you as you see yourself moving closer to your ultimate goal."

Let me know how it goes! If you need more help with this, get in touch.

Recently I was commissioned to work with a well-established New Zealand organisation that provides professional services into the C-Suite and mid-level management layers of New Zealand's largest and medium-sized organisations.

Without having to mention who they are, it is safe to say that they reflect a profile that is similar to organisations of their size that struggle to address what they know to be the proverbial "low hanging [systems and processes] fruit".

The Initial Brief

The initial brief was to help them get one of their more pressing projects over the line. They had been trying over the last three years to implement a core business system to replace their ailing and dangerously unsupported legacy system.

I remember the CEO saying to me as an addition to my tasks "... but Rob, we also want you to take a long hard look at how the business currently operates and suggest any improvements we can make." The assignment was signed up for a year.

Having made the move to Cloud-based infrastructure and applications, the CEO had already helped the organisation move toward the "any time, anywhere" paradigm. The problem now lay in how their team was using these tools and the business processes which lay underneath. Inconsistency and some confusion existed.

G-Suite had been deployed primarily as a mail and calendar management tool set. They were also using an unrelated Cloud-based service to store significant amounts of their documentation and organisational artefacts. Locating them effectively was another thing altogether however. Consolidation of some of the systems and platforms was first on the agenda.

What They Found

What we also found was that, with a little imagination, and a few extra free-to-use cloud-based applications - including those they were already paying for in their G-Suite environment; we could provide a seamless, business-wide tool set that supported collaboration, efficiency and getting the job done. And mostly for free.

By employing techniques such as Design Thinking and the Ideation process, we were able to deploy working solutions that were easily adopted and relatively inexpensive to implement. Our biggest challenge? Containing some of the enthusiasm that started growing as the "lights went on" when people started appreciating the possibilities that were opening up to them.

There are a surprising number of affordable and capable tools out there. As described above, with a little imagination and experience; some pretty elegant solutions can be assembled which are secure, stable and which "hit the nail on the head". All this without either breaking the bank or leaving large portions of functionality unused and -- as a result -- wasted.

IT Can Be Easier Than You Think

As we progressed through the "What problem are we trying to solve now?" process, we regularly discovered a suitable and affordable answer to what will solve it. As long as it was:

Reputable;Easy to acquire;Easy to learn;Easy to use;Able to interact with what was already in place;Available as a cloud-based offering; andIdeally for free.

We were interested. Eventually, as we looked back at what had been deployed, and the problems that had been solved; we acknowledged the simplicity and pragmatism with which these solutions arrived. And they live on - being used by the team as if they had always been there.

Operating costs? Having used a combination of subscription-based and free offerings, each solution that entered the operations of the business -- were all appropriately sized. We paid for what we needed. Nothing (including functionality) was wasted or left unused. Right-sizing solutions - not people.

One can be amazed at how simple, but effective, a combination of all these solutions ended up becoming. Sub-systems Synergy.

If you would like to find out more about how we went about delivering such an outcome, please get in touch.

So much is written about organisational change management and the sometimes tenuous relationship with the wider organisational strategy. Often change programmes are planned and implemented as a sub-set of some larger piece of work aimed at delivering a specific outcome – in a word: projects. This happens all the time.

Besides, isn’t the idea that project-based change management effort is aimed at ensuring that the people go along for the ride – preferably willingly – completely valid and true?

Or is it something that should be far more pervasive than an on again/off again activity, part of the organisational DNA, a more regular phenomenon? If so, might it mean that change becomes less of an issue, and more of a way of life?

Not much is known in the broader business community about change management strategy and how it can be successfully aligned to the commercially-driven vision, mission and strategy of most organisations. Here, I aim to introduce some of you to change management strategies which, hopefully, may help to firm up your approach and plan on how to implement the management of change in your organisation.

If not, I genuinely hope that it will at least shed some light on some of the issues that need to be thought through before triggering your next change initiative.

The Problem: Approaching Change, is Change in itself

Overlooking the Change Battlefield

Change Management Strategy is often overlooked. Quite a few change management practitioners dive straight into the formulation of change management plans, communication and engagement plans, change readiness assessments - the tactical and operational aspects of managing change - all without giving much consideration to the "battlefield" on which change is about to be implemented.

The “battlefield” I mention here is analogous to those forces that will inevitably resist and obstruct the change effort that is necessary for the organisation to succeed. In this sense, the “battlefield” is always present.

Avoiding "Expensive" Over-Planning

Some even consider the time taken to formulate an appropriate Change Strategy as being an expensive and valueless exercise: the domain of consultants trying to extend billable time unnecessarily. Herein lies the problem. The rush to "get stuck in" has often cost organisations far more in the end than a carefully thought out and understood strategic approach to managing high impact, expensive change.

Change is Difficult & Unpredictable Anyway

Anyone familiar with organisational change - large or small - knows that it is always difficult and largely unpredictable. Mistakes will always be made, the thinking behind a correctly applied change management strategy is that it aims to significantly reduce the number of mistakes, not eliminate them.

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things – Niccolo Machiavelli

Change Management Strategy: What does it look like?

So, why do so many change practitioners rush to the tactical and operational attack plans before thinking through the change landscape and terrain? Often because they are driven by urgency - there is no time to think strategically, no time to choose the most appropriate approach to the change "battlefield" and the challenges that lie ahead.

Change management strategy is more about the relationship between what is changing, and the environment in which that change is going to take place - and how to approach this relationship.

4 Change Management Strategies

There is an abundance of literature on the subject of change and change management, mostly focused on the implementation aspects of change and how to "go about it". I cut my organisational change and renewal teeth on Deborah Ancona and several other esteemed authors from the Sloan and Simmons Schools of Management.

My opinion is that some effort is made in the work that Ancona and her team did to identify an approach to managing change that considers the general characteristics of the subject of change management activity – the people that are expected to change.

In crudely paraphrasing a piece of their work (and I hope they forgive me for any inaccuracies), a list of four, broad approaches and related assumptions about the change "battlefield" is formed:

The Empirical/Rational Approach: people are rational and will follow self-interest;The Normative/Re-Educative Approach: people are social beings and will adhere to cultural norms and values;The Power/Coercive Approach: people are fundamentally compliant and will do what they are told; andThe Environment/Adaptive Approach: people oppose loss and disruption, but they adapt readily to new circumstances.

Each of the above four strategies then contain elements that aid in guiding the selection of activities that need to occur, and factors that need to be considered, in detail in the tactical and operational plans we all know and love. Pragmatically, often a blend of these strategies is more appropriate than a “one size fits all” choice, but a dominant approach frequently emerges.

The complexity of selecting the right strategy must also occur whilst considering factors such as:

The degree of expected resistance;How high the stakes are;The time frame in which the change needs to occur;The availability of expertise; andThe degree that the organisation depends on its people.

The key point here is that rushing into a “let’s do this, and let’s do that” change management planning session too quickly without being thoroughly familiar with what we are getting ourselves into; is dangerous and potentially damaging.

Some will argue that all this strategising this takes place during stakeholder identification and assessment as the change management plan is formulated. But I would suggest that this position is similar (using the battlefield analogy), to barging into a fight knowing who you are going to fight, but not knowing how (and if) they will fight back. A broader, governing strategy needs to be in place if the unexpected occurs.

Oh, and then there is the question of whether (or not), the organisation is ready for change… But that discussion is for another day.