Change Management

Managing change is a full-time job. The quantity and diversity of major change initiatives taking place is mind-boggling. Change dominates the agenda. And, as most CEOs and managers have discovered, change can be very traumatic.

The wave of change cannot be easily accommodated. Both the pace and the degree of change we are experiencing today is unprecedented.

In the pursuit of reengineered, redesigned, and restructured organizations tailored to the demands of a new competitive environment, organizational trauma may reach epidemic proportions. While the interventions may be appropriate, their demands may not be compatible with success or survival -- especially in the absence of adequate supporting structures, sponsorship, and resources.

Change management is a methodical, systematic approach to increasing the likelihood of a successful initiative. Change management can be both difficult and complex. Organizational change requires new behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes; each may be critical to the ease, efficacy, and speed of adopting major changes. Moreover, these requirements extend to every level of the organization: directors, executives, management, staff, and even customers -- all of the stakeholders.

A Systems Perspective

Major organizational change is a multiple systems challenge; its impact reaches throughout the organization. Key systems and familiar structures are no longer intact. New demands and constraints are introduced. Unfamiliar processes and methods must be learned. Change is resisted. Organizational systems can exhibit remarkable resiliency and adaptation if they are effectively managed through the change process.

 

Commitment

Major change requires a commitment of time, resources, and management beyond the requisite needs of the change itself. Past performance will attest to this. Both successful and failed projects -- joint ventures, mergers, acquisitions, restructuring, new services, capital campaigns -- offer meaningful information and insights. What is clear is that major change requires an organizational infrastructure to support and sustain it. In the absence of such a commitment, the project will fail.

 

Discipline

Change management is a disciplined approach which brings the necessary skills, knowledge, and change infrastructure to increase the probability of successful adaptation. It focuses on the human dimension of change.

Heed the Human Dimension

The fundamental implication of change management is that change is a process with a human dimension which can and should be managed. People resist change; they will undermine and sabotage it. They may welcome change or ignore it. They may embrace it, and then reject it. Change challenges long-held behaviors and beliefs; it demands a departure from the comfortable and familiar.

 

Keep the Agenda Manageable

Change management recognizes that there are limits to assimilation. From an organizational perspective, the quantity and scope of initiatives that can be realistically accommodated are limited not only by the usual resource constraints of time, labor and capital, but by their social and psychological demands as well. Simply stated, management must stick to a manageable agenda. And, then, it must create and sustain the organizational infrastructure to support it.

Monitor & Measure …

• Sponsor Commitment and Support
• Progress
• Obstacles
• Sources and Types of Resistance
• Information Needs
• Schedules, Time lines, Deadlines
• Teams
• Resource Consumption
• Gossip, Feedback, Grumbling
• External Events

Elements of Successful Change

1. Build a coalition and enduring support for your project.
2. Anticipate resistance, get it out in the open, and manage it.
3. Keep your eyes on the obstacles as well as the goals.
4. Build a representative team of the best people.
5. Cover the bases with your implementation plan.
6. Share credit, report progress, and communicate honestly.
7. Never assume; verify.
8. Be open to learning.
9. Honor your stakeholders.