Building Change Management Leadership: Jennifer Frahm
Jennifer Frahm is a highly experienced change manager, communications professional, coach and facilitator. She has held a range of roles, across a number of industries, in change management, marketing and communications. She has a PhD in Management from the Queensland University of Technology. Jennifer participated recently in the by-invitation event Dent the Future, in Sun Valley.
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Change Management and Leadership
Is the CEO always and everywhere the person to lead organizational change?
A lot in the academic literature about this. Broadly, if the change is of a visionary nature, or strategic or cultural, then it’s the CEO’s responsibility to lead: if of a more operational/incremental nature, then line managers.
Jennifer takes the pragmatic view that it doesn’t really matter who is leading as long as someone is doing it.
The notion of the CEO leading all change is somewhat unrealistic. In reality, we don’t have “change to be led”, we have multiple changes, ongoing, concurrent.
Think about what it means to be leading change in the contemporary distributed leadership context.
“Leadership is inherent within all of us.”
And a small detour into discussing military leadership. Reference for more on this: David Marquet, former US Navy nuclear submarine commander and author of Turn the Ship Around! A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders.
Dent the Future
This annual gathering in Sun Valley is by invitation and is about “the magic and science of visionary leadership and ground-breaking success”, “a creative retreat dedicated to demystifying great leadership and success”.
Great networking
The networking opportunity is extraordinary. The people you are networking with are so diverse, so clever, and so creative, that was just phenomenal. And the organizers do the most amazing job of creating a container for conversation.
Some speakers who made Jennifer think differently
Amy Webb, author, futurist and Founder of the Future Today Institute
Nonny Della Peña, Co-Founder of the Emblematic Group and nominated by Fast Company as “One of the Thirteen People Who Made the World More Creative”
Gavin Andresen, Chief Scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation
Buicks, Slack and Ketchum restaurants
Hear about a unique dining + conversation experience
Leadership and Social Media
How much is social media seen by business leaders as being an essential element of strategy and how much as an optional extra?
We’ve come a long way but not there yet.
More takeup of Twitter by business leaders.
Services used in-house, such as Yammer, Jive, Chatter have provided a training ground in social media for leaders, who get comfortable and then might start to explore more public platforms. Still some who are too risk-averse to try.
“Really incremental”
Some good examples now with politicians: President Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Victoria (Australia) Premier Daniel Andrews – “an axis of social”.
Political leaders showing the way for business leaders?
What Keeps Business Leaders Awake at Night?
Great answer – you have to listen (at 18 mins 6 secs) as I can’t do it justice in these notes.
Then some very practical thoughts about the implications of the question. Again, best to listen.
Leading Multi-generational Teams
Has everything changed with Millennials/Gen Y?
What’s changed: expectations of organizational life and management.
What’s not changed: the act of managing your workforce.
The same need to understand expectations and align those with what the organization has to offer.
More about Jennifer and Contact Details
Besides consulting and contracting, Jennifer runs “Conversations of Change” retreats and offers Executive Coaching for those leading change. She has published two e-books, The Transformation Treasure Trove: Series I & II. She is also an accomplished practitioner and coach in the social media space.
Jennifer operates at the forefront of change management and communication, globally and has been listed in Change Source’s the Top 20 Change Visionaries You Need to Know and is a Solo Change Agent with the Change Agents World Wide network.
Jennifer is currently writing a book for executives and managers, Navigating Change. To know more about that, download her e-books from the website; she will in that way get your email address and keep you posted about the new book.
She enjoys particularly working with “tier 2” companies (up to 10,000 employees) and is always keen to hear from companies at that level.
To contact Jennifer
Twitter: @jenfrahm
Web: Conversations of Change – http://conversationsofchange.com.au
Facebook: Conversations of Change page
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Des Walsh
Business coach and digital entrepreneur. With coach training from Coachville.com and its Graduate School of Coaching, and a founding member of the International Association of Coaching, Des has been coaching business owners and entrepreneurs for the past 20 years. Over the same period he has also been actively engaged in promoting the business opportunities of the digital economy. He is a certified Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) coach, and a certified specialist in social media strategy and affiliate marketing.
