Higher Education and Academic Research Community

·       Do you believe there is a pattern of success that you have seen in organizations that once identified can be more easily replicated to help achieve success when leading and division/department/organization through significant change?  Can this be applied to Academia and Institutions of higher education?

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Mary H. Sylvester, PhD
mary.sylvester@ibm.com
(972)971-9819
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@Mary Sylvester, I have to fall back to the Prosci research which indicates that active and visible executive sponsorships has been and continues to be the number one factor in project success. The research is updated every two years and dates back to 1998. In our University, experience has supported this research. On projects that falter, extend deadlines, create tension, stress resources, and go live with dissatisfied customers/impacted people, the one identifiable factor is a sponsor that remained disengaged. Our most outstanding successes which we continue to celebrate are those with an active sponsor who displays excellent leadership through engagement, empowering people to do their project roles, communicating key messages through their personal networks, and showing up to celebrate the success. 

The challenge remains in replicating those characteristics to other executives. We have worked hard to "coach up" within our university, hosting meetings to listen to the vision of the sponsor, asking key questions to gather deeper information, communication regarding expectations and what will make for success. Many have responded and continue to be a pleasure to work with, growing in those desired characteristics. Sadly, we do have some who also continue to remain disengaged and their projects continue to lag in our university's aggressive growth, impacting many people negatively.

In the university, often the top-down mandates do not work the same as in the corporate environment. The distributed organizational structures and often siloed segments require more coalition building to achieve success. This coalition building is also a key characteristics of successful sponsors. While the debate is on over whether this can be taught, we know it can be influenced through peer-to-peer modeling and again "coaching" as we CMs facilitate meetings between sponsors and key influencers in the organization to network and discuss the impacts and implications of projects and initiatives. Sponsors share vision, influencers share concerns and we are able to help visualize a result and gain consensus for moving forward.

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Barry Bridges
Manager, Organizational Change Management
UT San Antonio
bbridges59@gmail.com

Original Message:
Sent: 2025-11-13 10:04
From: Mary Sylvester
Subject: Is there a pattern of success for Change Management that can more easily be replicated?

·       Do you believe there is a pattern of success that you have seen in organizations that once identified can be more easily replicated to help achieve success when leading and division/department/organization through significant change?  Can this be applied to Academia and Institutions of higher education?

------------------------------
Mary H. Sylvester, PhD
mary.sylvester@ibm.com
(972)971-9819
------------------------------

·       Do you believe there is a pattern of success that you have seen in organizations that once identified can be more easily replicated to help achieve success when leading and division/department/organization through significant change?  Can this be applied to Academia and Institutions of higher education?

·       Do you believe there is a pattern of success that you have seen in organizations that once identified can be more easily replicated to help achieve success when leading and division/department/organization through significant change?  Can this be applied to Academia and Institutions of higher education?

That's a very insightful question about Organizational Change Management (OCM), Mary.  While core OCM methodologies-such as clear communication, readiness assessments, and strong sponsorship-form a repeatable framework for successful transformation, they are not a guaranteed blueprint. I've found that these principles must be customized deeply to fit the unique culture, history, and stakeholder needs of each organization, especially within complex systems like Academia. For example, a communication strategy effective in one department might fail entirely in another without tailoring the messaging to their specific job impact and perceived value of the change. Therefore, though the what of OCM is replicable, the how demands a flexible, non-one-size-fits-all approach that accounts for the human element of change.

·       Do you believe there is a pattern of success that you have seen in organizations that once identified can be more easily replicated to help achieve success when leading and division/department/organization through significant change?  Can this be applied to Academia and Institutions of higher education?