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Writer's pictureKerrie Smit

Accelerate your change and avoid the over-promise

Updated: Sep 25

Working in the change management industry since before it was known as 'change management' I've seen many different approaches. I've seen some wonderful team successes, and I've seen some of the opposite. There are lots of theories, models, advisors and advice out there. I've been interested for many years about how to accelerate change and avoid the over-promise.


The funny thing about advisors is that these businesses often start with the germ of a breakthrough idea that is a no-brainer: a highly appealing proposition for you or your business to take on. But what happens over time is the business grows and scales. In order to keep its commitments, it needs to keep growing. Clients are then often dealing with a slightly derivative sales process, rather than the creative process that lead to the great idea in the first place.


That's not a bad thing per se, businesses need to grow. As long as it does doesn't lead to over-promising. Over-promising simplifies complex problems into an appealing package that entices you to buy the solution you're seeing. You're really buying into the effort it requires to create the right environment for the solution - but that isn't always obvious.

Tools and methods that over-promise, aren't just a supplier-side problem. For over-promising to occur, the client needs to be complicit in believing the selling points.
A young programmer works in a server room

For example - and I'm sure you can also think of many - a government agency purchases a software product from a start-up provider because it offers highly integrated functionality that serves up real-time data to mobile field units. Wonderful! This product does what they want it to with an appealing user interface and an agile team. But government agencies are famously not agile, and this one wasn't capable of doing the background systems work required to facilitate the functionality seen on demonstration. This involved substantial change at scale across multiple systems and the organisation was ultimately unsuccessful in implementing.


To a less expensive example. Many change managers are lured to launch forward early with communication templates and tools. Because visual communication is so powerful, it becomes tempting to run out a message, or build awareness with smart-looking infographics before there's an understanding as to what exactly the change manager is committing themselves and their team. Most corporate audiences are already over-saturated and premature awareness messaging can ultimately harm the program's longer-term communication progress.

Our brains are wired for problem solving, and we love a simple answer. But as in most aspects of life, beware the simple answer to a complex problem.

Examples of over-simplification abound in every walk of life. If an economy is experiencing low growth, the politician who first points an accusatory finger at immigration wins votes. When organisations deal with psychological wellness of employees, they often put an Employee Assistance Program in place and assume that has addressed the need. With the complex problem of climate control, promoting sustainable practices and balancing economic growth with environmental protection sounds hard. Instead we're often presented the false dichotomy of stopping all industrial production or letting the planet burn.


The reality is that complex problems require introspection and teamwork to understand and manage. Change management efforts are often brought in around the time when organisations are trying to implement solutions. These solutions may be based on a sound understanding of organisational needs and problems, or they may be a quick-win or quick-fix attempt to 'shut it down fast'.


The Agencia Change Accelerate methodology is battle-tested and proven to

manage the process of change management. This means that Accelerate guides practitioners to focus on the most value-adding steps in an express timeframe. From creating a high level assessment through to readiness planning, producing fast results, supporting project and program delivery and enabling business preparedness. Results are fast not by painting over the cracks, but by focussing on the right part of the process at the right time.


In our communication example, the Accelerate method would guide practitioners to design communications after there's alignment among leaders and an understanding of impacts has been achieved. Putting effort into comms before that is a waste of effort, potentially confusing (or worse) and this slows down the final outcome.

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Accelerate is based on experience and tailored for the environment and the data we discover in the organisation we're working with, and - along with the Elevate change communications methodology - it forms the basis of our service offerings at Agencia Change. Following this method, we explore the change, the people involved and get a true understanding of the opportunities behind the difficulties they're dealing with. 

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We can assess our audiences' experience and skill levels, and design change plans accordingly. We can compare the execution of our change and communication plans against our framework - or your own - and highlight gaps, issues and risks. We deploy tools and templates based on experience and a data-driven approach to the detailed nature of the changes we're working with. Accelerate your change and avoid the over-promise.


If you'd like to hear more about agile approaches to managing change, book us in for a conversation.



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2 Comments


Unknown member
May 24

Great work

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Unknown member
May 24

God bless you

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