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Don’t you hate it!? You’ve been working on this marketing project for a while now, and it seems you’re stuck. The results are less than you expected. And enthusiasm for your project starts to wane.

Now, instead of giving up, it may help to analyze your project. And see if you’ve met all of the conditions that are required for successful organizational change.

Wait. What? Wasn’t this a marketing project?

Sure, but in order to reach your marketing objectives, you probably want people within your organization to change their behavior. So, in essence, you’re managing organizational change.

And when it comes to organizational change, there’s a model that describes the conditions for success. The Managing Complex Change Model was developed by Dr. Mary Lippitt in the 1980’s. And since then revised and adjusted by others like Timothy Knoster.

Of course the Lippitt-Knoster model doesn’t represent the messiness of reality. It does however, provide you with a comprehensible set of clear steps to success.

Unknowingly, you may have skipped a step…

  1. Vision – Did you develop a vivid description of the desired future? And did you communicatie this vision in such a way that it was clear to everyone why you were running the project? In order to prevent confusion.
  2. Skills – Did everyone involved have (access to) the skills required to make the project a success? To prevent anxiety.
  3. Motivation – Did you provide key players with the right incentives to participate? Did you sufficiently motivate and reward them for their participation. Versus ‘forcing’ them to participate. Which will only lead to resistance.
  4. Resources – Money, people, tools. You name it. Did you provide people with the hardware required to achieve the set goals? In order to prevent frustration.
  5. Plan – Was there an actionable plan? Was it clear to everyone who would do what and when? In order to prevent false starts of people moving into all kinds of directions. Resulting in an unproductive “threadmill”.
  6. Consensus – Was there sufficient buy-in for the plan? Was everyone on board? In order to prevent sabotage.

Now, take a few minutes and analyze your project. What step(s) did you skip? And, are you able to go back and take the step(s) retroactively?

Hope this helps!

Thank you for reading MBD Truths #002, sent to marketers and business developers on January 30, 2024.

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