Corporate Change: How Position Revolution Influences Stakeholder Commitment in Corporate Change

For the change pro, stakeholder commitment is a vital component in successful company change. Preferably, when working through a corporate change, the shareholders will represent a fixed cast of players that are committed to seeing the process through from starting to finish. This situation avoids having the project bog down because of a learning curve for new shareholders and the occasional Johnny-come-lately 2nd guessing that can go on when a new person enters a project mid-stream. However, the growing trend in the corporate world is to use position revolution to enhance employee value. 

While, generally, position revolution is good for companies, it can have an obvious impact on stakeholder commitment to a corporate change process. There is no set period for position revolution. It can run as short as eighteen months, but the average is three years before lateral revolution or promotion. Now, if the shareholders the change professional is looking to enroll are early in their position, getting commitment for a corporate change project is easier. However, if they are late in their rotation, gathering this commitment can be tougher.

Their hesitance could be an easy case of not desiring to paste the following person with a project they don't want or will not believe in. If they have an inkling who will take over their position, they may need to debate it before consenting. In essence, they are joining in good career politics by not leaving the bag in some other person's hands.

The other probability is they don't want to sign off on a project only to have it come back to haunt them later. Statistically, change projects have a poor success rate. The potential stakeholder could be considering their legacy and do not need to be related to a potential failed project; especially if they will be leaving before the project concludes. The change pro should be conscious of these considerations when approaching possible stakeholders.

For more information, please see our website: Corporate Change