Thought Leadership Articles

    The Importance of Training Internal Stakeholders to Secure Your Change Management Efforts

    Feb 19, 2019 | Posted by Michael Campbell

    According to Prosci Best Practices analysis of over 6,300 change projects only 34% of organisations adequately prepare their managers for their role in change before they are impacted by it. This is problematic because unless a business is willing to fully engage with line managers and other key  stakeholder groups, they could be paying for some employees to initiate change and for others who it directly impacts to resist it.

    When implementing change, line/middle managers are commonly left behind, even though the same research reports that they are both instrumental to successful adoption of new ways of working themselves and are the key influence on an employees' choice to adopt or resist. Ensuring strong  middle manager buy in to change is a best practice requirement to aid sustained adoption of new ways of working.


    The CMC Prosci Train-the-Trainer programme is designed for certified change management professionals who are ready to start deploying change management training throughout their own organisation. The focus of this four-day programme is to expand on the learning achieved during the Prosci Certified Change Management Practitioner programme. With direct coaching from a CMC Prosci Certified Advanced Instructor participants have an opportunity to learn and practise the modules contained in Prosci’s role-based training programmes for employees, managers, practitioners and sponsors of change, so that participants are equipped to take change management to the next level and confidently begin training their most important internal stakeholders. 

    As stakeholders they influence outcomes, benefits, results and the level of ROI generated when a change is sustainably adopted by the people in your organisations that it directly impacts. Our Train-the-Trainer programme can play a part in helping you successfully implement change into your organisation and reduce the risk of disgruntled stakeholders and sponsors.

    As part of the Prosci method to improve the quality of sponsorship for change we advocate the following three steps :

    • Identify your "guiding coalition" of sponsors for the change; those leaders and managers who are directly responsible for the functions and employees personally impacted by the specific change in question
    • Asses the degree of personal support each sponsor has for this change; do they publicly and positively advocate for this change to be successfully deployed or not?
    • Assess their past competency in leading past changes with their team 

    The resulting Sponsor Assessment Diagram (SAD) is a vital tool to then guide improvement in the strength of support for this change from your guiding coalition.

    While effective sponsorship is one vital component of successful change adoption it it important to ensure that all management and stakeholders understand the role they each need to play for successful change adoption by mitigating natural and often logical resistance. Attending our Train-the-Trainer programme will address these concerns and help build wider change management competency across all stakeholder groups throughout your organisation. 

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    Topics: train the trainer