Monthly Archives

August 2022

Aug 15
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Announcing Our Q2 2022 PURE Award Winners

By | Announcements, PURE Award Winners | No Comments

We are pleased to announce our latest winners of the PURE Service Award: Nicholas Hutchings, Denise Jeffries, Janet Kearney, Ramona Soto Stevenson, and Sherrill Voegel.

Nicholas Hutchings

Nicholas Hutchings is an ERP Instructional Designer and his proven expertise in instructional design, system implementation and ERP experience has been a huge asset to our client’s project needs.

The client had this to say about Nicholas: He is a strong communicator able to deliver effective messaging at all levels within the organization from SME to VP. Not only does he demonstrate an extreme sense of urgency and is proactive, but the standard also that he imposes on himself goes well beyond expectations. Consultatively, he can determine areas of most importance and pursues them with tenacity. This project is constantly evolving, and Nicholas has taken on a team leadership role, leads by example, is proactive, brings order to chaos in a systemic and logical manner, and has great EQ. His business savvy and ERP experience are amazing, he consistently demonstrates creativity in overcoming roadblocks, and has poured himself in becoming part of the solution. Nicholas has gained the respect and trust of all our team. and is my right hand.

Denise Jeffries, Janet Kearney, Ramona Soto Stevenson and Sherrill Voegel

Denise, Janet, Mona, and Sherrill are instructional designers and have proven time and time again their expertise, collaborative style and creative solutions have been nothing short of beneficial to our client’s needs.

The client had this to say about Denise, Janet, Ramona (Mona) and Sherrill: Over the past several years the criticality of strong Instructional Designers supporting my Change Management team has been vital. We have had two transformational projects impacting thousands of global employees. How lucky we have been to have four amazing CARA Instructional Designers part of the team. Mona, Denise, Sherill, and Janet are integral members helping to create and update thousands of SAP training materials while also going above and beyond by providing areas for improvements and leveraging new tools to deliver adult learning. There is no task we cannot give one of these four that they won’t tackle with excellence. It is also unique to have so many similarly skilled consultants on the same project/team. Mona, Denise, Sherill, and Janet strong camaraderie and support for one another bleeds over into the work they deliver for my team. Individually and collectively, they exemplify CARA’s PURE values and we are honored to have them part of our team.

CARA’s PURE Service Program provides a unique way to measure success and evaluate how well our consultants’ service delivery meets our clients’ needs. CARA’s service delivery process is based on the PURE service philosophy and consultants are reviewed quarterly based on how well they demonstrate our PURE values: Professionalism, Understanding, Responsibility and Excellence. CARA’s consultants are nominated based on client feedback, PURE evaluations, and team interaction with the consultants. After careful consideration of each candidate, CARA selects the PURE award recipients. The PURE award program is the foundation of CARA’s culture, aligning us with our clients’ and consultants’ values in service excellence.

 

Aug 10
0

Building Long Term Change Muscle in Your Organization – Part 1

By | Change Management | No Comments

Why Long Term? In our first blog earlier this year we talked about major business trends. The trends that require significant change and change that is beyond simply the project level. In fact, they required strategic change. Continuous change. A series of projects and programs to stay out in front of the competition.

To achieve that level of change, our last blog addressed leadership’s role in strategic change and how to build their strategic change skills and engagement to form the foundation for this continuous change.

“How do you build…[organizational] change muscle? ….people managers play a critical role….”

Now the question is: how do you build a sustainable change capability in the rest of your organization? We refer to this as building change muscle.

Maybe a better question is: why would we need to build our organization’s muscle?

To best illustrate this, I have an example: a recent PROSCI article[1] talks about the many roles that need to be filled by internal resources.

One of these roles is the “people manager”. In a world of strategic and continuous change, the people managers play a critical role in ensuring change. They have organizational authority, are key communication points, understand the culture, and have built a storehouse of trust with their teams. These internal strengths cannot be outsourced to an external OCM consultant, and the faster managers develop change skills (organizational muscle), the faster change can happen.

The first step is to determine what skills your organization will need to create long term change muscle. Secondly, determine where these skills reside, inside or outside the organization.

Brief note: We believe that internal resources are just as important to change success as external resources. However, they each play distinct roles and bring value to the change process. Getting those right builds sustainable organizational change muscle.

QUESTIONS TO ASK WHEN BUILDING CHANGE MUSCLE

Here are some questions to get you started on determining the best mix to build your organization’s change muscle:

  • What roles and activities are best suited for internal OCM resources?
    • Change agents and change champions
    • SMEs (variety of topics)
    • Sponsors
    • Change leadership
    • Communicating and integration on an organization wide basis
    • Spotting resistance
    • Managing resistance
    • Training support
    • HR support
  • What internal resource characteristics make them best suited for these roles?
    • Organization understanding
    • Organization acceptance and trust
    • Accountability and organizational authority
    • Ability to manage long term sustainability and long-term behaviors
    • Understanding of the current state and in the longer term the Future State vs the Current State
  • What roles and activities are best suited for external resources?
    • OCM project lead
    • Communication and training expertise
    • Coaching
    • Support
    • Education and engagement
    • Feedback
    • Challenge
    • Advisor (SME in OCM)
  • What characteristics make each best suited for their respective role?
    • Objectivity
    • Cutting edge expertise and experience
    • Speed of execution
    • Structure, tools, and best practices
    • Educating of internal resources
    • Structured process and best practices

Now that you have identified what is needed for your organization, what is the next step to bring those skills into your organization? The how!

In our next edition, we will be helping you determine which specific skills your organization needs to build OCM muscle, where these skills can come from (e.g., internal, external sources), and how to acquire them.

We hope you have found this blog post helpful in setting stage to help your organization build the OCM muscle needed for the long term.

If you have any questions, we’d love to hear from you.

[1] Source: PROSCI article: CLARC: The Role of People Managers in Change Management