Influencing Change & Revisiting Leverage

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. - Victor Frankl holocaust survivor

Being a leader in my field (Principal Engineer)

In the section below, please find my analysis of how I can concretely practice the skills of Influencing Change & Revisiting Leverage to become an effective Principal Engineer.

When I become a principal engineer, an individual contributor who is a technical leader. My time will be limited and valuable. As one person I will not have end-to-end ownership of projects, I will not be at every early discussion of a project. However, I will be brought into situations where change is desperately needed. When I do become involved in a situation, I need to quickly identify what the issue is and produce a recommendation for how to proceed. As a leader it is my responsibility to triage issues and identify if they need more or less attention and involvement from other leaders.

There is an element of showmanship required to get the attention of a larger group of individuals. As a principal engineer, when I consider how change models like John Kotter’s eight step process apply to the roll I think of a few activities. I need to create a sense of urgency to unfreeze the organization. I can use data, statistics, and technical demos to show others a vision for the future. I need to facilitate the formation of a guiding coalition and get the organization into the movement phase where change happens. Finally, I need to refreeze the norm by showcasing the accomplishment and setting up systems to prevent a regression to the old way of working.

Part of my issue is in my current role I would not likely be granted the authority to do some of these tasks. I need to take the opportunities when they present themselves. Even partial involvement such as being part of the guiding coalition is a good experience to learn concretely how organizations handle change beyond theory.
I have had a few projects where I was given control and have been successful in leading change. A point of improvement for me though is building rapport amongst the coalition instead of taking the position that I am assigning action items, instead it should be driven by the coalition’s desire to enable the change.

Artifact 5 Organizational Change

Concept & Illustrating Artifacts

In Module 7 we had a two-week application assignment where students are tasked with applying a change model to an organization, they are already in. Due to private company details I had to abstract my problem to withhold details while still sharing the outline of my problem-solving approach with the instructors.

If you have access to my module 7 application assignment to review it as you read through this section of my InterAction plan since I will not restate the entirety of the problem and plan here.

At a high level, there is a process P that has some inter-team dynamics that are problematic. I suggest three strategies to either change P or the environment around it to lessen the impact on my team. From this plan I worked with my mentor and identified two other stakeholders within my organization to meet with. I have met all of these individuals, and I am understanding more clearly why there has been difficulty prioritizing this work in the past. In the course of these discussions I have found that one of my suggested strategies is likely to succeed and am still investigating how we can use it most effectively.

Reflection on how this knowledge and skills will help you become a good leader

My initial reaction to this issue is that I would inform my mentor about it, and they would act and solve the problem for me. Instead of doing that he led me through a discussion of problem solving, we brainstormed solutions to the problem and that is how I arrived at the action item of meeting with the stakeholders. This wider perspective now has helped me not view leaders as the problem solvers when I have that ability within myself.

To improve on this skill farther I want to continue to find changes that matter to my leaders so I can direct my energy to change initiatives that they would like to see happen.

Plan for getting there

I will ask my mentor and management team for more feedback and areas of change that they would like to see. From these ideas of change I will brainstorm using John Kotter’s eight step process and will act to be the change agent for my leaders.