An Interview with Sheila Fain, LaMarsh Global CEO: ‘Our Mission is to Build Change Management into Organizations as a Core Competency’

At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the giant social experiment in which organizations suddenly sent everyone home was the easy part. Since nothing will be the same in the short term, the bigger challenge will be to bring people back to the workplace. The pandemic has thrust every business and leader into a situation of managing change and thinking about how to get people on board for what comes next.

Change management is more than just achieving your goals. It improves your competitive and financial viability through successful, timely, and strategic changes. At its core, change management principles are solid and they apply in multiple situations.

In light of the foregoing, we’re pleased to present LaMarsh Global — a change management pioneer and thought leader serving Fortune 500 organizations, focusing on providing strategic and tactical change management consulting, learning, certification, and executive coaching services using the proven Managed Change methodology.

The company helps leading organizations mitigate risk to adoption and facilitates the acceptance of change at a more rapid pace, increasing the likelihood of delivering expected results, on time and within budget.

LaMarsh provides both training and consulting services with the end goal of delivering effective change and transferring its own capability into client organizations.

The company was incorporated in 1979 and is headquartered in Chicago, IL.

Sheila Fain, LaMarsh Global CEO, spoke exclusively to CIO Bulletin. Below is an excerpt.

Help us understand how you help companies in business transformation.

The path for transformation is often rooted in a technology change or merger/acquisition. These are important but needs to be seen as the enabler for change or transformation. To achieve the results of the transformation, people must accept and adopt new tools, skills, expectations, and behaviors. That is the entire focus of change management. We start by helping companies discover how each part of their organization will be impacted by the transformation, what they are being asked to do, how much risk there is to adoption, and develop and implement a targeted plan to manage the risks.

What is exclusive about LaMarsh Global?

We know that successful change requires leaders to lead their people through change. We provide them with the support to do that more effectively.

We aim to transfer knowledge to our clients, leaving them more capable than when we partnered with them.

Our focus on the need to proactively identify the potential unintended consequences of the transition from the current state to the desired state is unique. This allows us to work with leaders to determine the most likely and highest impact risks and manage them rather than experience them and react.

Importantly, we use our Managed Change methodology. It has been developed, used, and improved continuously over the last four decades. We use this model to assess and manage the potential consequences of multiple changes impacting the same group of people in the same timeframe, which can also introduce serious unintended consequences.

Lastly, the most exclusive strength is our skilled, experienced staff. All the members of the staff have held leadership positions in business and have a minimum of 15 years in the trenches.

Shed light on Managed Change methodology. How does it help in reaching strategic goals?

When working with leaders to assess the current state (which describes why a change is needed and why now), we must establish how the change supports the achievement of strategic goals. If there isn’t a clear connection, the question becomes: is this change important for some other reason if it isn’t furthering your strategy.

Second, in the development of the desired state, the leader(s) authorizing the change is coached to not only describe what success means but put measures to that description and tie it to specific strategic goals.

Readiness for change is assessed early to understand where the skill and willingness to change is in place and where we have the opportunity to improve. The data gathered through this effort enables the team to understand the specific risks to success and develop a targeted change plan to mitigate the risk.

Tell us about your customized on-site training.

We have developed many different customized learning courses. For both our consulting and learning tracks, we don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach. We work with clients to identify objectives, understand their learners, and offer tailored alternatives to meet those objectives.

Sheila Fain: The Leader at the Helm of LaMarsh Global

Sheila Fain serves as the Chief Executive Officer of LaMarsh Global. As an executive coach, mentor, and thought leader, Sheila builds change management competency through the hands-on application of change projects. Her people-first approach has enabled the world’s largest corporations to embrace change and organizational excellence.

“As the global leader in change management, we help organizations develop change capability so you can concentrate on innovation and growth.”

“We work with clients to identify objectives, understand their learners, and offer tailored alternatives to meet those objectives.”