A recent US survey found that large companies are currently running an average of four major transformation projects. The need for leadership during such radical change is widely recognized, yet what does ‘sponsorship’ of change initiatives really mean? In this Briefing we consider “The Executive Role in Sponsoring Change”. We reflect on the high failure rate of change projects, and propose a framework for the creation and sponsorship of such initiatives.

Whether you have two change initiatives running, or two thousand, and whether you are just starting a major one, or finishing it, there are two critical activities that should take place if you wish to create the ability to continually manage change. The first: map all existing initiatives against the corporate strategy to create a single, prioritized list of improvement projects. The second: design and implement a core change process which can be applied to all future projects, and which explicitly defines the role of the sponsor, and the mechanisms you will use to monitor effectiveness of the change sponsors.

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This article is part of Axon's Change Management Process.  To view other articles in this process please visit the Change Management Page.