Driving and Sustaining Change
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Driving and Sustaining Change
Change takes time to attain full adoption by the existing employees. Several elements drive the sustainability of change. I believe that the change leadership and change tools (process control boards, performance boards, standard work, and improvement huddles) are critical in changing change. Change leadership encompasses the influence of the institution’s management and other stakeholders ready to advocate for the change through practical application and encourage routine acceptance and utilization of the suggested change. Change leadership is crucial in creating a clear vision for every participant and the institution and developing practical steps to achieve the vision (Kotter and Cohen, 2014). Definition of goals, strategy articulation, and workforce empowerment are the key characteristics of change leadership that ensure change sustainability. Change leaders also help select and motivate high-performance individuals and set up teams where they are more productive. In the process, everyone embraces the change and equips themselves with necessary skills through teamwork and coordinated efforts (Cran, 2016).
On the other hand, the tools of change, like process control and performance boards, help relay improvement results to stakeholders in each change process. In return, each participant understands the importance of the change and participates in making necessary modifications through feedback. The standard work tool helps give clear visual or written representation that provides a framework on methodologies that work and has shown positive results, thus allowing consistent and reliable application when needed. Finally, the improvement huddles, constituting short but regular staff meetings, enhance change sustainability by improving problem anticipation, performance review, and developing an improvement culture. All these tools utilize visual representation that is easy to understand, memorize and use by every stakeholder. As much as these tools are critical in the sustenance of change, other factors also contribute significantly, including leadership support, infrastructural support, and overall motivation (Silver et al., 2016). Therefore, it is necessary always to combine all these elements if the aim of change sustenance is to be met.
References
Cran, C. (2016). The art of change leadership: Driving transformation in a fast-paced world.
Kotter, J. P., & Cohen, D. (2014). Change Leadership. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.
Silver, S. A., McQuillan, R., Harel, Z., Weizman, A. V., Thomas, A., Nesrallah, G., Bell, C. M., Chan, C. T., & Chertow, G. M. (2016). How to Sustain Change and Support Continuous Quality Improvement. Clinical journal of the American Society of Nephrology : CJASN, 11(5), 916–924. https://doi.org/10.2215/CJN.11501015
Question
What two elements do you believe play the most significant role in sustaining change and why? Support your answer with one or two references.