Leading global changes - and what to consider to maximise impact!

How can you connect with your stakeholders and be the people person if it's impossible because of the sheer number of stakeholders (i.e. 100+) and they're located all across the globe? Here’s my top tips to maximise reach and impact:

Set up a change champion network

As with most changes, you can set up a change champion network globally with representatives in each site and country. You don’t even have to call them Change Champions. When I was working on a big global culture program, there was a senior leader group called something like “Global Advisory Board” and then there was a network of more junior staff called “Culture Connectors”. My big call out is to try use an opt-in model rather than a nomination model. If you’re in my Leading Successful Change program you know we talk about this all the time. Change Champions have day jobs and this extra role will go over and above as discretionary work. Often the same people get nominated again and again, and can get resentful and frustrated because they’re like, “Why doesn't anybody else ever have to chip in? I’m always doing my day job plus three or four or five other extracurricular roles or discretionary work!”. Nominating is often easier for managers or leaders as it’s faster and they have control over who they include in the network. But it’s not always the most effective method. Instead of nominating, think about using the psychological triggers and tools for a really great marketing campaign and making something so desirable that you invite people in and have them want to join of their own volition. Think about any masterclass or any webinar or course that I run, you can't just join on a LinkedIn Live. You literally have to tell me that you want to be there. I have to make it sound so great that you want to give me your email address and opt in and come along to that masterclass or that webinar or bootcamp so that I only get the people who truly want to be there. You can build in desirable things, like sneak peeks, additional training or capability builds, or any other sweeteners that actually help them in their career, profile and network rather than just feeling it's more work again and again. You might still need to stack it a little bit with some people who are nominated. But getting people who opt in, that their heart is in it, then it's got such a different feel to it. If you have no choice but to nominate, set clear criteria about the type of people you want (i.e. go-to people in their team or trusted amongst peers, optimistic, positive about change, open to new ideas, collaborative). Make sure their leader actually tells them they’re nominated. Onboard them properly and use those qualities as a way to boost their commitment to the role, “You were selected because you have these qualities.” It pumps them up and makes them feel really good. 

Bring out the forums

You can also do more global forums based on function, role level or role type. I’ve done this with projects that I’ve worked on and consulting clients that I’ve worked with. Say you've got a category of stakeholder, you might not go and meet them individually. Instead you might go, “We are going to catch up every quarter and then I get to hear from you and, but I’m also going to share stuff with you or I’m going to give you this bit of capability or I’m going to do X, Y, Z.” Again, you want to make it desirable that they want to come along to this thing. Sometimes it’s just doing something that's less formal, so you could even do it as a breakfast or a lunch or an afternoon tea in each location, to have a bit of a different feel. I go through this with consulting clients all the time: people often don’t reach out to their peers in other areas! You think that they would connect with their counterpart in another part of the business. For example, you might have HR in one part of the business and HR in another part of the business and you assume that they know each other, that they talk regularly, etc. Half the time they don't. You become a matchmaker with them and put them together into these forums and then they get a real win out of it too. And they actually often enjoy talking with their colleagues! They just don't have the desire or the inclination or the idea to actually have done it themselves. Setting up forums can take a bit of time - you've got to book it and plan it and then facilitate it. But it can be really valuable for people. Just keep it short, keep it light, and make sure that there's stuff of value in it as well so that there's a reason for them to come together. If they just feel it's another meeting that's popped into their diary there can be a bit of resistance.

Network far and wide 

Sometimes it's also about you networking far and wide yourself and becoming really well known and people will start to reach out to you as well in the organisation. Say you get introduced at the very end of a town hall or the very end of a forum or the very end of a project standup. You can say something along the lines of, “I’m more than happy to chat with anybody and share how I go about doing X, Y, Z.” And then people might come to you, like moths to a flame. 

Ask this one question

Whenever you catch up with a stakeholder, just go, “Who else should I talk to?” When you start to get those categories of stakeholders together, you can figure out if you want to set up a forum for this group. Do I want to catch up with people regularly one-on-one or is there a better way of going about doing it? You will still probably need to do some one-on-one catch-ups. It's just you'll be more selective and prioritise them.

Create a self-serve mechanism

If you can't get to everybody, you might put something up in a central location and go, “This is here,” and create a mechanism for feedback and input. Especially if you're working across time zones, it might be too hard trying to get everyone physically on the same session in real time. You might go asynchronous and say, “I’m putting up the briefing pack here and beside it is a document where you can pop your questions and I’ll answer them as we go. And that can actually be a really helpful tool because then anybody who comes along can read through the questions and responses from prior. So you might want to get a bit creative with how you communicate, engage and keep that two-way open communication with your stakeholders. because there are definitely ways to do it. A word of warning: I know that there's a lot of really fancy platforms out there, but don't let the platform be the reason that people don't interact and engage. People's barrier to technology is higher than we would like to think and it can take several times to get people to use a new platform. I just always try to use whatever is already being used. If that's a PowerPoint, if that's a Google Doc, I just try to make it as simple as possible so that everybody can access it and everybody can do it. 

So there are some ideas for how you can still get the same outcome, even if you can't meet up with everybody one-on-one.

If you’re curious about how to build trust with stakeholders instantly, watch my free 6 Ways to Build Trust video.

CLICK HERE to watch 6 Ways to Build Trust Video

And if you’ve already watched the video and want to go deeper into advanced topics like leading global change, these are exactly what we talk about on the monthly coaching calls of my Leading Successful Change program. The next monthly coaching call is Wednesday 6 November, so check out the LSC invitation page for all the advanced Change Management, Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Coaching tools and techniques you get in the program and come join us for our next monthly call. 

CLICK HERE to join our next monthly coaching call

Feel free to DM me on LinkedIn with any questions you have about LSC. 

Lata xx