Jesse Jacoby

How the power of presence can make you a better manager and lift your team by giving them doses of your undivided attention.

Change management typically takes a back seat to the technical aspects of most projects, often with dire consequences. Here is a four-step blueprint for improving the change capabilities across your organization, focusing on four building blocks: structure and governance; methodology; tools; and resources and competency.

Newport Consulting Group fall / winter 2011 white paper collection. With a focus on what makes a 21st Century (or so-called "C21") Company, a number of articles consider how this growth model can be leveraged through sustainable strategies and operations across the organization. Contributions by William Newman, Dave Meyer, Jesse Jacoby, and Liz Garnand.

When companies choose to deploy new software to end-users across the enterprise, they are looking to either enhance business performance or minimize IT costs. These goals are often broken down into more discrete objectives such as increasing employee productivity, providing new capabilities, streamlining processes, reducing service desk calls, and so forth. Regardless of whether the software runs “in the cloud” or locally on employees’ machines, the economic business case assumes that some… Show more

When companies choose to deploy new software to end-users across the enterprise, they are looking to either enhance business performance or minimize IT costs. These goals are often broken down into more discrete objectives such as increasing employee productivity, providing new capabilities, streamlining processes, reducing service desk calls, and so forth. Regardless of whether the software runs “in the cloud” or locally on employees’ machines, the economic business case assumes that some percentage of the end-user population will adopt the new software. The projected return on investment (ROI) as defined by the business case depends on achieving a defined target adoption rate. Show less

Organizations that invest in an internal change management capability set themselves apart from their peers. They are able to adapt to the constantly changing business environment more easily, adopt solutions more quickly, and realize project ROI sooner. Ultimately, it gives those organizations a competitive advantage. In this white paper we provide a high-level blueprint for designing and implementing a high-performing internal change management capability.

Emergent partnered with a Fortune 500 apparel company to undertake the biggest transformation in the company’s history. Building upon its recent track record of solid performance, the company chose to implement a new global structure designed to fuel its long-term, international growth. The project touched the company’s multiple brands, 3,000+ stores, and 130,000 employees located in more than 40 countries.

A 2011 Gartner survey found that companies under invest in organizational change management. Companies allocate, on average, only 5% of the overall system implementation budget to the organizational change management effort. Gartner recommends that companies allocate an average of 15% of the program budget to organizational change management, inclusive of training — but more, if changes are significant or the corporate culture is more change-averse.

We interviewed 28 change leaders at large companies to better understand their internal change management capabilities. While not a statistically significant sample, the insights provide valuable perspective on the evolving practice of enterprise change management within large companies. The companies represented have revenues ranging from $5 to $137 billion and employee bases ranging from 6,000 to 176,000. With just one exception, all of the companies are headquartered in the United States.

Many excellent change initiatives never get off the ground, stagnating just when they should be flowering. Why, after an enthusiastic start, do so many major change efforts—a new product rollout, international expansion, a new IT system—founder and organizations return to the pre-change state? It’s because companies focus disproportionately on the structure and technical aspects of the initiative itself, and not on showing employees a “truth” that motivates them, at a very basic human level, to… Show more

Many excellent change initiatives never get off the ground, stagnating just when they should be flowering. Why, after an enthusiastic start, do so many major change efforts—a new product rollout, international expansion, a new IT system—founder and organizations return to the pre-change state? It’s because companies focus disproportionately on the structure and technical aspects of the initiative itself, and not on showing employees a “truth” that motivates them, at a very basic human level, to invest them in the change. Show less