Delivering effective change management in the Defence sector

Our customer is a leading defence organisation, providing some of the world’s most advanced, defence, aerospace and security solutions, and employing around 100,000 people in more than 40 countries.

Recognising that differentiated business units are ‘stronger together’, they embarked on an enterprise-wide transformation journey to strengthen its core functions across sector and regional boundaries, positioning them to deliver more consistent business support, and enabling greater efficiency and agility across the enterprise.

It is in this context that the Finance function launched their Modernisation Programme – an ambitious, multi-year endeavour which will overhaul structures, systems, processes and skills across the whole organisation. The scale of change was described as ‘once in a generation’ and the CFO and his Senior Leadership team knew they would need professional external change management help to deliver the benefits within a highly differentiated organisation, which simply could not drop the ball.

Project One deployed a senior People Change Leader who shaped the way the organisation engaged their people in the change.

The support focused on four key areas:

• Vision and Narrative: Our People Change Leader worked collaboratively with critical stakeholders to co-create a compelling vision and core narrative which drove consistency and predictability in the way people heard about the programme’s intent. This narrative centred on the concept of ‘One Finance’ and formed the backbone of all engagement for the first six months of delivery, being rolled out through face-to-face roadshows, animations, cascade materials and editorial news channels.

• Aligned Leadership: When moving from a necessarily differentiated organisation, to one driven by cohesion, an aligned leadership community is a must-have. We worked with the CFO to create a cross-sector Extended Finance Leadership Team and help them build a sense of shared accountability for change. Through expertly designed and delivered working sessions, new communications channels, and a suite of tools which equipped leaders to engage their teams with ‘one voice’, this community has grown into a thriving cohort who trust and support one another to succeed.

• Inclusive involvement: A Modernisation Agent network was established, with passionate volunteers from all corners of the function coming together to learn more, shape the engagement approach, and act as a conduit between the programme and their wider teams. The network was equipped to ensure local communications were consistent and frequent and gave the programme valuable insight into how to make the narrative and messaging clearer and more relevant.

• Measurement: Project One’s People Change Leader rolled out a change readiness diagnostic at the beginning of the delivery phase, and then again in advance of the programme’s first major change milestone. Focusing on the four key areas of Vision, Leadership, Stakeholders and Communications, the measurement survey highlighted some key areas of focus which informed the overall change plan.  When the survey was deployed again 6 months later, the results demonstrated a marked improvement in these areas, giving confidence to the Senior Leadership Team and acting as one of the key inputs to the go-no-go decision.

After nine months of targeted people change support, the modernisation programme went live with its first critical milestone – a change of reporting lines for more than 700 Finance colleagues. The change took place with no impact on business continuity, zero grievances raised, and sustained high employee engagement scores.

Since then, the new structure has acted as an enabler to bring about enterprise-wide process enhancements which have reduced manual effort and cycle times in some finance processes by as much as 25% – outcomes we believe it is impossible to achieve without creating meaningful behavioural change.

Our People Change advice to the Finance Modernisation Programme continues after more than two years, offering change delivery support to specific programme milestones, and ensuring ongoing development of the Leadership and Involvement communities.

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theteam@projectone.com