ARLINGTON, Va., Jan. 23, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. government
faces significant change during administration transitions, which
can lead to a potential loss of nearly $27
million in productive work hours for the average agency over
the next nine months, according to CEB (NYSE: CEB), a best practice
insight and technology company. Like any large-scale leadership
change, a new administration brings a different set of priorities,
plans and timelines for the federal workforce to carry out.
Agencies typically focus on making the transition easier on the
incoming leader, but do not always account for the productivity
cost of the change across the rest of the organization.
"The administration transition isn't coming – it's here – and it
brings with it a risk to employee productivity," said Liz Joyce, principal executive advisor, CEB. "In
the face of this complex, large-scale change, agencies need to
encourage remaining leaders to help employees focus their efforts
on the right things to minimize efficiency loss. Organizations
often delay talking to their employees about the transition, which
results in people anticipating direction and wasting effort on
things that are not high priority, and also increases the number of
change resistant employees."
Agencies can tackle the productivity challenges employees face
during an administration transition by employing the three Cs –
capability, capacity and context.
The 3 Cs of an Administration Transition
1. Capability – Traditional change management frameworks
center on building employee commitment or buy-in to the change –
focusing on informing, explaining and rationalizing the change.
Instead, the best agencies focus on helping federal employees
build their capability – or the set of information, skills and
networks they need to perform. Capability has three times the
impact as buy-in on employee performance during a large-scale
transition. The key to driving employee capability is to focus on
ensuring they have the resources they need to rebuild skills and
networks that were disrupted as a result of the transition.
2. Capacity – There is often a period during transition
where there is an absence of strategic direction, creating job
paralysis for federal employees. The fear of using resources on
initiatives that incoming leaders could halt causes employees to
enter into "operations-only" mode.
During this time, employees need guidance on where to direct
efforts despite not knowing the priorities of their future leaders.
Managers need to help employees find capacity – or the resources
needed to execute strategic priorities – so that they can focus on
the most critical objectives during the transition period. To do
this, managers should adjust and adapt employees' roles, set
interim performance goals that are achievable and clearly
articulate how employees should spend their time.
3. Context – There are a multitude of books and trainings on how
leaders can approach transitions. However, these tools don't give
new leaders the historical context of the organization that is
critical to their success.
A new leader's direct reports have considerable influence on the
leader's success. Current employees provide critical organizational
context to incoming leaders to help them make strategic decisions
quickly. When transitioning new people in at the top, the best
organizations use relationship-building activities to help new
leaders establish and leverage internal networks.
About CEB
CEB is a best practice insight and technology company. In
partnership with leading organizations around the globe, we develop
innovative solutions to drive corporate performance. CEB equips
leaders at more than 10,000 companies with the intelligence to
effectively manage talent, customers, and operations. CEB is a
trusted partner to nearly 90% of the Fortune 500 and FTSE 100, and
more than 70% of the Dow Jones Asian Titans. More at
cebglobal.com.
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SOURCE CEB