Practice Management

Believer or Skeptic?

When working with clients on change initiatives, I notice that they have two widely different strategies for appointing the internal person to lead the project. In some cases, they appoint a "true believer" who really wants to see the change happen. In other cases, firms go out of their way to appoint a skeptic, so that only proposals that can overcome the skepticism emerge from the study task-force, and proposals are not made that will not be implemented.

As a consultant, it's easier initially to work with a true believer, but the implementation success may be higher if a skeptic is appointed.

Does anyone have experience with this? if you were a company manager, who would you appoint to lead the charge on new strategic change intiatives?

Full post as published by Passion, People and Principles on November 20, 2007 (boomark / email).