Whether you’re looking for the right person to lead change within your organization or you yourself are that person, consider your (or your candidate’s) skills and understanding of change. The questions below will help you with this process. The purpose of such questions is to gather information regarding change process experiences and techniques. You can then utilize this information in the understanding of leading change within your organization.
The following questions were developed by combining two change process theories – Kotter’s (1996, p.21) eight-stage process for creating major change along with Collins’ (2001, p.12-14) idea of transformation as a process of buildup followed by breakthrough. Both theories address the importance of having the right people involved in a successful change process (leaders and team members alike). People seem to make up the very foundation of any project, and the careful selection of the right strengths, talents, and attitudes can make a tremendous difference in the project’s outcome.
1. Do you feel comfortable with change itself?
2. How do you feel about leading change? Do you find yourself to be an effective change leader? How much experience do you have leading change?
3. Do you seek out the “right” leaders and team members when preparing to address a change?
4. How do you establish a sense of urgency? Do you review the current reality searching for crisis and opportunities? How do you prepare yourself and others mentally?
5. How do you create a guiding coalition? How do you put together a group that is strong enough to make the change happen?
6. Tell me about developing a vision to help direct the change effort and strategies for achieving that vision.
7. What means or technologies have you found yourself utilizing in the past to facilitate change?
8. What means do you use to communicate the new vision and strategies? How important do you find modeling the right behavior to employees when facilitating change?
9. How do you empower people to achieve the new vision? Do you remove obstacles and encourage new ideas and risk taking?
10. List short-term wins as you work towards achieving a major change. How do you celebrate achieving the smaller goals? Do you recognize/reward the people responsible for the short-term wins?
11. Do you combine the short-term wins and changes to facilitate more changes in the future? How do you do that?
12. How do you anchor the new changes within the company culture?
Collins, J. (2001). Good To Great: Why Some Companies Make The Leap…And Others Don’t. New York: HarperCollins Publishers
Kotter, J. P. (1996). Leading Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press
