1. Direction: From the git go everyone must know where they are going, when they are going and why they are going there.

2. Communication: As the change leader you must have regular, unwavering communication. He who blinks loses.

3. Support: You must provide continuous, visible and strong support to your change leaders.

It's simple. It's leadership. Unfortunately, leadership is as scarce today as a compliment between George Bush and Nancy Pelosi.

A wise man in an old book once wrote that blowing an uncertain trumpet wil

We were in the Boardroom of a $1.5 billion consumer goods manufacturer when the CEO made that statement. Of course he was responding to what I had just said.

"If you gentlemen don't know why you’re doing this project, how on earth do you expect the rest of the company to get behind it?"

You see this outfit was way behind on their promises. The same Executive Team that sat before me that day had two years previously made the decision to implement a new ERP system. You remember, ERP, enterprise resource planning system. They were all the rage in the nineties. That meant a lot of money for the vendor selling and a lot of headaches for the people in the company on the receiving end.

Well this same group of wannabe golf pro’s, they were wanting to move the meeting along for their 1 o’clock T time, had sat in this same impressive, mahogany clad Boardroom and somehow chosen PeopleSoft as the system of choice. It was a solid Human Resource system but no one was choosing it for a system wide implementation. Now, two years and $30 million later, they had nothing but a budget on steroids and were again asking themselves - why did we do this?

We see so many projects fail because of a lack of leadership. In this case, a new manufacturing plant in their business would have cost $35 million to build, and they would be getting a report on its progress every week. This crack crew hadn’t asked for or received a progress report on this project for over six months. As the outside guy brought in to 'fix' this money gobbling beast, I had to force the meeting we were now sitting in. It’s pathetic to see actions like this mistaken for leadership. But in many large companies today their brands are strong enough it takes several years of this BS to kill it.

When you're a change leader - lead! In the meeting I’m telling you about, during the presentation updating the reasons for a lack of progress and what was being done about it, the CEO sat at the end of the proverbial big long table cleaning his nails. He never looked up once until he asked, “Why are we doing this?” If you think that is uncommon on change projects, I have some of Jimmy Hoffa’s Florida land for you to look at.

As the change leader you must provide unwavering direction, communications and support. You must do all three from beginning to end of the project.

1. Direction: From the git go everyone must know where they are going, when they are going and why they are going there.

2. Communication: As the change leader you must have regular, unwavering communication. He who blinks loses.

3. Support: You must provide continuous, visible and strong support to your change leaders.

It's simple. It's leadership. Unfortunately, leadership is as scarce today as a compliment between George Bush and Nancy Pelosi.

A wise man in an old book once wrote that blowing an uncertain trumpet will

Well this same group of wannabe golf pro’s, they were wanting to move the meeting along for their 1 o’clock T time, had sat in this same impressive, mahogany clad Boardroom and somehow chosen PeopleSoft as the system of choice. It was a solid Human Resource system but no one was choosing it for a system wide implementation. Now, two years and $30 million later, they had nothing but a budget on steroids and were again asking themselves - why did we do this?

We see so many projects fail because of a lack of leadership. In this case, a new manufacturing plant in their business would have cost $35 million to build, and they would be getting a report on its progress every week. This crack crew hadn’t asked for or received a progress report on this project for over six months. As the outside guy brought in to 'fix' this money gobbling beast, I had to force the meeting we were now sitting in. It’s pathetic to see actions like this mistaken for leadership. But in many large companies today their brands are strong enough it takes several years of this BS to kill it.

When you're a change leader - lead! In the meeting I’m telling you about, during the presentation updating the reasons for a lack of progress and what was being done about it, the CEO sat at the end of the proverbial big long table cleaning his nails. He never looked up once until he asked, “Why are we doing this?” If you think that is uncommon on change projects, I have some of Jimmy Hoffa’s Florida land for you to look at.

As the change leader you must provide unwavering direction, communications and support. You must do all three from beginning to end of the project.

1. Direction: From the git go everyone must know where they are going, when they are going and why they are going there.

2. Communication: As the change leader you must have regular, unwavering communication. He who blinks loses.

3. Support: You must provide continuous, visible and strong support to your change leaders.

It's simple. It's leadership. Unfortunately, leadership is as scarce today as a compliment between George Bush and Nancy Pelosi.

A wise man in an old book once wrote that blowing an uncertain trumpet wil

We see so many projects fail because of a lack of leadership. In this case, a new manufacturing plant in their business would have cost $35 million to build, and they would be getting a report on its progress every week. This crack crew hadn’t asked for or received a progress report on this project for over six months. As the outside guy brought in to 'fix' this money gobbling beast, I had to force the meeting we were now sitting in. It’s pathetic to see actions like this mistaken for leadership. But in many large companies today their brands are strong enough it takes several years of this BS to kill it.

When you're a change leader - lead! In the meeting I’m telling you about, during the presentation updating the reasons for a lack of progress and what was being done about it, the CEO sat at the end of the proverbial big long table cleaning his nails. He never looked up once until he asked, “Why are we doing this?” If you think that is uncommon on change projects, I have some of Jimmy Hoffa’s Florida land for you to look at.

As the change leader you must provide unwavering direction, communications and support. You must do all three from beginning to end of the project.

1. Direction: From the git go everyone must know where they are going, when they are going and why they are going there.

2. Communication: As the change leader you must have regular, unwavering communication. He who blinks loses.

3. Support: You must provide continuous, visible and strong support to your change leaders.

It's simple. It's leadership. Unfortunately, leadership is as scarce today as a compliment between George Bush and Nancy Pelosi.

A wise man in an old book once wrote that blowing an uncertain trumpet wil

When you're a change leader - lead! In the meeting I’m telling you about, during the presentation updating the reasons for a lack of progress and what was being done about it, the CEO sat at the end of the proverbial big long table cleaning his nails. He never looked up once until he asked, “Why are we doing this?” If you think that is uncommon on change projects, I have some of Jimmy Hoffa’s Florida land for you to look at.

As the change leader you must provide unwavering direction, communications and support. You must do all three from beginning to end of the project.

1. Direction: From the git go everyone must know where they are going, when they are going and why they are going there.

2. Communication: As the change leader you must have regular, unwavering communication. He who blinks loses.

3. Support: You must provide continuous, visible and strong support to your change leaders.

It's simple. It's leadership. Unfortunately, leadership is as scarce today as a compliment between George Bush and Nancy Pelosi.

A wise man in an old book once wrote that blowing an uncertain trumpet wil

1. Direction: From the git go everyone must know where they are going, when they are going and why they are going there.

2. Communication: As the change leader you must have regular, unwavering communication. He who blinks loses.

3. Support: You must provide continuous, visible and strong support to your change leaders.

It's simple. It's leadership. Unfortunately, leadership is as scarce today as a compliment between George Bush and Nancy Pelosi.

A wise man in an old book once wrote that blowing an uncertain trumpet will lead to failure. You have to be in or out with this change stuff. You can’t be kinda' pregnant. It's like raising kids. If your child can go to your spouse and get a better deal than what you gave them, they will. There must be a common direction established upfront, then everyone climbs aboard the change bus and off you go. It’s not rocket science, its leadership.

Be a leader. Establish direction, communicate with your people and support them at every turn and you will succeed at change.

Ed Kugler