TOP-DOWN-BOTTOM-UP APPROACH

It would be wise if you were an ice cream seller to convince the dad the benefits of his kids taking ice cream and it would be even wiser if you let the kids be the ones to taste the flavours you are selling.

Why so? its the dad who will pay for it and for him all matter is whether its worth committing himself.
For the kid its all about whether they like the flavour doesnt matter if you sell 10,000 pieces to their dad if they don't like it they won't take it.

I do believe in the same manner proponents of change need to have a very convincing argument that can sell to the management, (more so the department heads) for any effective change to be implemented. Its is a lot easier to get a system through if you fully sell the benefits to the decision maker, the resource person of the department. Reason being if the juniors run into trouble during implementation they will run back to him and woe unto you if you are a Change Manager and your resource person is clueless.

Now its good to have all the knowledge but since you are the head most of the time you do the thinking and let the legs do the walking the hand the feeling the eyes the seeing. In other words you will buy the ice cream but you will not eat it. In line with this the Change Manager must ensure he gets the relevant persons for every process to be the ones to push through any change. With all due respect as much as you do the thinking you shouldn't do the operations as well.

This is the best way to fail in a project, because no matter how much you sell the idea to management, if your operations team do not get it no matter how many ice cream you sell they will not take it.

Thots of a Budding Change Manager (me)