A number of years ago now, while at PACCAR Inc, I was asked to speak at the quarterly Leadership Institute we held for mid-level managers and high potential employees. My assigned topic was Change Management. I'd been hired as PACCAR's first CIO in 1997 to help develop a world-class IT capability. In that role, I part of a significant upgrade in just about everything within PACCAR's IT Division. So speaking on the subject of Change Management would seem to be a natural.

But how to convey all that we'd done, how we'd approached the task and the pitfalls? A recent search on Amazon.com listed nearly 8,000 books on the subject. Clearly there's lots been said but CIO's and other IT leaders continue to struggle with how if you judge by the continued high churn rates. For better or worse, I thought I'd share what I said in those sessions.

If we are to be successful, we have to accept the challenge to not only manage change but to be a cause of it. Believe what you will about evolution (I won't debate it here!) but this quote is a favorite: “It is not the strongest of species that survive, not the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change”. Charles Darwin.

IT Leadership has a strategic imperative to continuously sponsor, manage, encourage and sometimes force change. There are three key areas: People, Products and Process. Change in what we produce and how we go about it are the Product and Process bits. The People side is the key however. Get the other two "right"- and a case can be made that it's not possible without the right People in the right roles- but neglect the People element and you've failed.

I'll take up the issue of People in the next few posts.