In my 30-plus years leading and consulting for large multinationals, I've seen many attempts at major transitions fail before they even start.
It's mid- January and the Chief Marketing Officer asks you to re-launch your firm's leading product line. Your current positioning is stale and the media thinks it’s "old-hat". Your job - reposition the product line and show an increase in sales by 4th quarter this year. Spend up to $15 million and use whatever expertise you need, inside and outside the company.
You have the money and the date. Easy, right?
Now it’s late March and you haven’t had your first brand brainstorming session yet. It’s taken almost three months to overcome the political barriers, gain some priority for key resources and identify all the people who’ll be affected. Sales is resisting because they have to be retrained: Finance is objecting because this seems too high-risk, despite C-level agreement back in September.
When you got the job, it seemed like you had a short year to get the CMO’s repositioning done. Now you realize that 4th quarter means Sales has to be re-trained before Thanksgiving and you can’t get IT resources before mid-May. You’re late before you even start.
What if you had 25% more time to get it done?
Actually you already did. You’ve spent 10 weeks already, spinning your wheels in politics, resistance and conflicting priorities.
There’s a saying in the world of change management – change programs get late one day at a time. It’s quite true. So, one of your keys to success is to get moving on day 1. And be doing productive work on day 2 and day 3 and day 10.
Have you ever tried to throw together a great appetizer when unexpected company shows up? What was the most important thing you had to have – a recipe and ingredients, right?
Wouldn’t it be great to have a recipe and the ingredients for that re-branding program on day 1?
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