HOW TO EMBED YOUR CHANGE AND MAKE SURE IT STICKS

BALANCED DIVERSITY. A PORTFOLIO APPROACH TO ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

Much has been written about change initiatives failing to achieve a return on investment because they did not gain traction or become embedded as a new-way-of-working.

This paper explores reasons changes often fail to be adopted, the solution in the form of the Balanced Diversity framework, the construct of the framework, how it should be used and why you should be using it on all of your change initiatives.

The Balanced Diversity framework is a reference guide for every leader of change who needs access to a wide range of practices for successful change.
Often change is implemented only to find that there is not widespread adoption. This is a costly situation that results in project overruns, unnecessary rework, additional training, delivery delays and project resources unable to be assigned to new projects.

I believe a reason for this failure is the failure to use the right selection of practices (or activities) to successfully transition to a desired state. The answer is the Balanced Diversity framework.

The framework provides a wide-ranging and diverse set of 59 practices that can be used for successful transitions. The key is that they have been divided into informal and formal practices. They have then been grouped into those that will help the organization deliver on current commitments (referred to as fulfillment) and those that will help the organization move further along the path to change (referred to as innovation).

The result is that the framework provides four groups (quadrants) of practices from which leaders of change need to select a balanced portfolio of practices to make their transition a success.