Effectively managing change means...
- Keeping up with customer requirements by continuously solving their problems
- Involving employees in designing and implementing the "future state"
- Developing internal "change agents" to manage cycles of change
- Funding the effort by decreasing costs and increasing revenue
- Engaging management in a strong but efficient sponsorship role
- Using the right metrics and reporting to drive the right behaviors
- Making the easy thing and the right thing the same thing
- Enabling a learning self-healing organization
Want to know more?
Welcome to the professional site for Mike Leamon, independent consultant. Please use this site to understand my professional credentials, offerings and change management philosophy.
Now... what exactly is "Change Management?"
Discussions about "Change Management" can get very fluffy very quickly. The emerging way to cut through the fluff is to discuss a methodology called Lean. Take a look at how Lean's "inverted pyramid" management principle supports and involves the people doing the work. Understand how Lean focuses everyone on value chain improvements based on the customer's definition of value instead of their own. Look at how Lean develops good process first before supporting it with technology. And against human nature itself, consider the "problems first" thinking where problems at all levels are continuously surfaced and resolved. The Lean masters encourage us not to simply copy companies like Toyota who originated Lean. In fact, Toyota's problems have become the new learning ground for Lean change agents. Instead, translate the methods as you apply the principles onto the context of your business.
I had been learning change management lessons "in the trenches" for 15 years before being exposed to Lean 5 years ago. Concepts like the "inverted pyramid" and "process before technology" had been learned the hard way and had become core principles of my practice. I was impressed and surprised to find them in Lean. So, when you see these elements and principles reflected in my logo, it is not just because I know how to make a pretty picture from core elements of Lean. They are the DNA of my practice.
Don't Worry!
Too much talk about Lean methods can make your head spin. My approach is to avoid the "Lean Dump Truck" of principles by quickly helping you test-drive the approach. Engaging my services typically starts by allowing me to help with a specific problem through a process development project (landing a fish). Next-level services can include training where your change agents learn to fish. I also provide speaking engagements which impart knowledge gained from managing so many projects and programs over the past 20 years.
Sample of training / speaking topics:
- Lasting change is self inflicted!
- Change Management "Tools from the Trenches"
- Interactive war room demonstrating the war room method
- Process Mapping for business users
Caution!
There is no such thing as a cookie cutter "change management solution." An effective change agent must study your business and collaboratively outline interventions to move forward. Please feel free to contact me to discuss your requirements and needs.
Accelerated Lean Journey:
My two decades of change management experience started with an intense apprenticeship within London’s Subway system (The Tube) and has included internal consulting roles within Dell and Vignette Software. Most recently, I worked alongside Porsche Consulting at AMD to implement Lean across the global enterprise. The Lean immersion reinforced the notion that any organization can benefit from these methods.
Mike Leamon's Experience At-a-Glance
- 1992 London Underground Railway implementing the 1.6 Billion Dollar "Company Plan"
- 1995 Toronto Transit Commission working as Lead Consultant on the Information Management and Service Delivery Teams
- 1996 State Comptroller's Office implementing a single payroll system across 250,000 employees
- 1998 Dell Global Finance supporting the worldwide implementation of Oracle Financials
- 2000 Vignette implementing Oracle Financials worldwide and then launching a company-wide business process development program
- 2005 AMD serving as the Customer Centric Culture Program Manager supporting a company-wide Lean implementation
- 2008 Mike Leamon Consulting delivering process change, training development and professional speaking services