In this article I want to provide my findings of managing, leading and researching change. It is not a comprehensive checklist of items, but may serve as inputs to helping change agents, both new and old to the practice of change. Over the decades many practitioners, academics and consultants have provided models, structures, frameworks and methods to manage organisational change. Various corporate functions have had communicators, change managers, HR and organisational development experts deliver programs, interventions, plans and strategies. Yet, there is not a one size fits all approach, thankfully.
The Management of Change involves the process of developing approaches to implementing changes in organisations. The approaches must address several factors such as leadership, communication, employee engagement, training etc., which are ongoing throughout the change process. If these approaches are not ignored, and are managed and agreed, then the chances of success could increase substantially.
In this short article I have put together a list of aspects for anyone involved in change management to consider. Of course, this list is not exhaustive, but it does reflect many of my own experiences and learnings over the course of my career.
The following list provides a brief problem with recommendations for you to consider.
1. Leadership Engagement
2. Stakeholder Management
3. Communication
4. Governance
5. Use of Data
6. Culture
7. Organization development
8. Resistance to Change
Leadership Engagement, the problem: Not having all leaders or managers aligned with the objectives and the corporate vision, which is a requirement for change to happen. This results in employees receiving mixed messages, leading to a lack of reinforcement or rewards for the new behaviours. Alignment is needed, as well as having the right leaders to be prepared from the beginning of a change. Successful change requires having a clear strategy and change vision that aligns the functions with business objectives and a materialisation of conviction by executives, and the employees within the organisation.
Recommendation: Provide leaders the skills and capabilities to engage with people in the change journey by providing communication training, open forums to co-create the change, and understand their motivations to be part of the journey. Provide leaders the framework to think, decide and act according to the needs of the change. Tasking managers with driving bottom-up cultural change will provide leaders with more understanding of the employee’s perceptions and their own leadership abilities; however, they will require top-down support to succeed. Ensure leaders are trained in sound change management principles, and align a unified shared vision of success.
Stakeholder Management, the problem: Not enough or poorly defined stakeholder analysis doesn’t enable change agents to consider what they can do to gain support for the proposed change, nor does it help identify those who have power and those who are against or ambivalent to the change.
Recommendation: Change programs need to have more detailed stakeholder plans in place to ensure the operational deliverables and the change program are in alignment both strategically and operationally. A detailed stakeholder analysis for change agents is a crucial task, to ensure success as a change manager, and support the successful change strategy. The stakeholder analysis should cover multiple organisational levels, and use the opinions in framing change. The use of Change agents within the main stakeholder group can facilitate the change.
Communications, the problem: Change communications require that a good vision is imaginable, desirable, feasible, focused, flexible, and communicable (Kotter, 1996). Managers as well as change agents don’t always have the skills. There tends to be a lot of broadcasting, but not a lot of informing. It is important is to explain the consequences of the change because what might be obvious at a high level, might not make sense the employees
Recommendation: A detailed communication plan must be created and identify what needs to be communicated by when, by whom, and with what means (email, video social media etc.). Attention to ensuring the timely communication of change-related messages; matching communication channels to employees’ needs and providing listening opportunities in an appropriate manner can support change. A common, shared, language will enhance the change process, and support the acceptance and engagement of leaders and employees.
Governance, the problem: Not enough program structure or tracking means there is little scope for corrective action, demonstrating achievement of milestones and full implementation of the desired future state. Not having the right measures and the lack of coordination reduces the chance of delivering on the objectives.
Recommendation: Managing stakeholders, the change process and the performance of operations must exist to ensure the aims have been achieved, and setting up clear measures of performance is critical to the process of managing change. The measures should have an emphasis on the impact and the effects of change through structured information and analysis. A governance structure should include;
- The alignment of change management goals, project management, and the strategic plan
- Accountability to adapt the strategic plan in response to changing circumstances
- Embed monitoring performance of the change process and the resources applied to a change project
- Communicating as appropriate to stakeholders, the organisation’s owners, and the wider stakeholder community, the progress and issues arising.
I suggest that to successfully execute and to solidify the strategy during the early stages of change/ transformation, a governance framework should be established, which is robust and in line with the organisational governance frameworks.
Use of Data, the problem: Lack of data collection, no real kpi’s or measures in place to show progress and success, both on the people side, but also organisationally. It is important that change leaders and stakeholder understand how employees perceive change. This is key to understanding how to manage change across an organisation, and the main consequences are that stakeholders who want organisations to successfully change, need to be able to control the number and sequencing of changes throughout the organisation.
Recommendation: Design an organisational change readiness assessment at the start, middle and end of a change program to evidence the change is happening, sticking or being sustained. Provide the data to leaders and communicate progress to all impacted employees, and use the data to support the governance teams in acting and change the course as needed. Data must evidence the target objectives of the change project to prove the change was a success. Implement pulse surveys frequently to assess engagement, perceptions and sentiments of the organisation.
Culture, the problem: Many change programs focus on changing the “way things are done” from a corporate culture perspective, but fail to address local, regional and national cultures, leading to resistance or even failure of a change program. Culture describes the ‘way things are done around here’ and encompasses the attitudes people have towards their work, the relationships they have, how people work together and solve problems, etc. These aspects are important because they determine people’s behaviours, affect how people perform and underpin relationships. Posit changing and adapting the cultural paradigms usually take considerably more time than implementing new procedures.
Recommendation: Involving HR early to develop a diagnosis tool using Organisational Development techniques to see how the culture is functioning, what the strengths and weaknesses are. Identify the cultures involved, identify the ways of working, such as tools and processes, and then initiate and facilitate how the overarching change strategy can be integrated with the resulting diagnosis of the culture. Hofstede’s six dimensions can be useful to initiate the process of culture change. Support leaders to develop relationships with their teams (virtual or local) to foster a personal and trusting open dialogue. Additionally, create a culture change roadmap, which translates the vision culture into observable and measurable behaviours. Agreeing the cultural values prior to initiating a change process will allow one to include them throughout the change process. The organisational culture’s strength depends on the level of homogeneity in members’ perceptions and beliefs, or on the degree of variability in employees’ perceptions of the organisational values and endorsed practices (Miron et al., 2004).
Organisation Development & Design, the problem: Many OD practitioners are not well , or insufficiently trained in large scale change. Lack of involvement from the OD organisation leads to a gap between an organisation’s current state and where it wants to be in future, and the design of organisational practices that will bridge that gap. It is a fundamental, wide reaching, future-focused activity that often requires a review of the entire organisation and its context to decide what does and does not work. It will therefore usually involve a holistic review of everything from systems, structures, people practices, rewards, performance measures, policies, processes, culture and the wider environment.
Recommendation: Change programs should engage the OD organisation in ensuring the strategy, design and structures, people and the development aspects are considered in the planning. The process should involve and be supported by HR Organisational Development & Design experts in the diagnosing and mapping out the current structures, identifying hidden problems and challenges facing the organisation, and to develop activities which support the changes in mindset and behaviours towards the defined vision of the change.
Resistance to Change, the problem: Not having a plan, mechanisms or interventions in place to identify and actively contribute to overcoming resistance. Activities tends to be adhoc. As a result resistance can lead to old behaviours being perpetuated and change programs potentially failing.
Recommendation: Through the early engagement of stakeholders, and taking cultural differences and employee views of change into consideration, a clearly defined change road-map, communications plan, engaging change advocates and employees early, and initiating change interventions can help an organisation achieve its aim and be successful in change. Senior leaders, change managers and key stakeholders can provide the right approaches and framework to support the management of resistance. Employees are less likely to resist the change when they see the change as improving the long-term viability of the company through increased purpose and personal and business growth. Buy-in from all levels, clear purpose and having early engagement can be useful in reducing resistance, but the reality is that it won’t go away. Some considerations are as follows:
1. Engagement with resistors.
2. Communicate the purpose.
3. Deal with conflict fast and remove ambiguity.
4. Support managers and employees through the change.
5. Ensure corporate values and behaviours are in alignment with the perceptions.
Summary
This short article is certainly not a comprehensive list of all the things to do, but serves to provide some guidance based on my experience leading, managing and observing change programs. I believe the following are crucial in managing and leading change. They stem from my experience, research, and the literature.
- Early engagement with change practitioners
- Systematic stakeholder analysis and management
- Clearly defined success criteria and KPIs
- Use of metrics and data to ensure alignment to the success criteria
- Creation of a systemic view of the organisational transformation
- Bottom-up (employee engagement) co-creation of communication and change planning
I recognize that the implementation of these recommendations may prove difficult to apply, as lack of change awareness, knowledge of change management approaches, or the availability of resources or business critical issues may lead to a mediocre change program roll-out. I would love to hear what you think, and what experiences you have had.
