By involving leaders and employees in setting goals and forming concrete plans for the implementation as well as deciding and taking ownership of how best to reach those goals.
With Involving Leadership leaders and key employees are invited “on board”, they are involved in deciding how best to do things and by contributing they are taking part in setting the goals. It is human nature to fight harder for a goal they have been part of defining and as a consequence thereof take ownership to.
Research shows that often resistance to change is greatest in the mid- to top-level of the organisation and not necessarily amongst the “frontline” employees.
This is problematic as it is just these people who have to facilitate and ensure the change further down through the organisation.
Culture is self-affirming. Top-level leaders are top-level as they have demonstrated good results and match the current culture well. Their motivation for status quo is thus high.
Ownership is not achieved if these leaders are not actively involved, are consulted and become aware of how they can be even more successful by engaging and actively contributing to the continuing change.
The exact process is tailored the organisations situation and the purpose of the change to be implemented.
As an example a process could consist of: interviews, workshops, feedback, follow-up analysis of progress of implementation, coaching in Involving Leadership.