All Achievers ~ Listen Up~ Learn How to Successfully Approach Cultural/Organizational Change – Part I

Thank goodness that many of us have Achievers in our organizations! Achievers get things done! Why? Achievers, as defined by StrengthsFinder 2.0 “…feel as if every day starts at zero. By the end of the day, Achievers must achieve something tangible in order to feel good about themselves. And…’every day’ to an Achiever means every single day ~ workdays, weekends, vacations. No matter how much Achievers feel they deserve a day of rest, if the day passes without some form of achievement, no matter how small, Achievers feel dissatisfied.” That’s great, right? Well, not so fast!Those same Achievers oftentimes (unintentionally) overlook or underestimate how their need to work in hyperdrive doesn’t necessarily align/integrate with their organization’s change culture, change capacity and change appetite. I know this because I used to be one of those Achiever people who built Achiever Teams who could “take any hill” at 150 mph, not realizing that the rest of the organization wasn’t ready for our stealth capabilities! But one day the light dawned and I “got religion.” I realized that I could still be an Achiever and build Achiever Teams, but instead of taking one hill at 150 mph, we could successfully take several hills at a reduced speed if we implemented “right fitted” Organizational Change Management (OCM) Plans for each of our major initiatives. And the cool thing ~ even though more upfront thought was required to build and more energy investment was required to implement OCM Plans, when properly executed, OCM Plan results saved us time and money, increased our outcome success rate, and created client and organization goodwill! 

My advice to all Achievers ~ including those Leader Achievers that I’m currently coaching ~ keep achieving, but before starting that next big initiative (or even small or medium size initiative), analyze your culture, its capacity and its appetite relative to Organizational Change and build a realistic OCM Plan that meets your company’s needs. And if you have any time left over, being the Achiever that you are, look for other creative and subtle ways to move your organization forward so you fulfill your needs without driving change too hard and too fast ~ which will frustrate both you and your company if your change adoptation rate isn’t realistically calibrated with your organization’s change adoption rate.

More to follow with Part II as we explore “Learn How to Successfully Approach Cultural/Organizational Change”!