Ed Jordan
Senior Vice President, Operations & CFO, Nolet Spirits U.S.A., 2009

"We had originally requested Brainard Strategy to assist us in the development of custom leadership development offerings. In the midst of our training, we began to go through some organizational changes at our company. In one of our sessions on Change Leadership, Michael demonstrated an amazing grasp of the organizational implications ofthese types of changes. As Michael had practical experience with organization change, we asked him to shift his focus from partnering with us on leadership development to change management. He was able to work with our executive team on communications and structural concerns, with our managers on how to deal with their own experiences of the changes and to offer them coaching and guidance on handling their direct reports. He demonstrated a true knowledge of change management, made theory real and applied his experience in practical ways.

We count on Brainard Strategy for strategic change management and leadership development needs and he is a well respected resource for many in our company."

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Change Management

Organizations change out of necessity and for a variety of reasons. While there is no single source of change, there is a clear pattern to the reasons for failure. Most often, it is a leader's attempt to shortcut a critical phase of the change process. Certainly, there is room for flexibility in the eight steps that underlie successful change -- but not a lot of room.

Producing change is about 80 percent leadership -- establishing direction, aligning, motivating, and inspiring people -- and about 20 percent management -- planning, budgeting, organizing, and problem solving. Unfortunately, in most of the change efforts those percentages are reversed. Our business schools and work organizations continue to produce great managers; we need to do as well at developing great leaders.

Kotters Eight Steps to Transform Your Organization best summarizes our Approach to partnering with organizations going through change.

1. Establish a Sense of Urgency
2. Form a Powerful Guiding Coalition
3. Create a Vision
4. Communicate the Vision
5. Empower Others to Act on the Vision
6. Plan for and Create Short-Term Wins
7. Consolidate Improvements and Produce Still More Change
8. Institutionalize New Approaches

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