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We can all acknowledge that change is both inevitable and continual, as often reverberated in the phrase, \u201cthe only constant is change\u201d. And while no business sits on its laurels and avoids change, it always amazes me how so many organizations get change management wrong.<\/p>\n
When things go wrong, blame is often misplaced, and that\u2019s where proper change management comes in. It’s intended to be a mindful<\/strong> and purposeful<\/strong> approach with the goal of getting change right (achieving desired outcomes) and it all starts with leadership.<\/p>\n In the first of a 3-part blog series, I\u2019ll be discussing how to make a positive and productive change by following four core principles of change management.<\/p>\n What Is Change Management?<\/strong><\/p>\n First, let\u2019s define what change management is. ACMP, the Association of Change Management Professionals, defines it this way: \u201cThe practice of applying a structured approach to transition an organization from a current state to a future state to achieve expected benefits.\u201d There are other models to draw from, like Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model, McKinsey 7s, Lewin’s Change Management Model or K\u00fcbler-Ross change management framework that will provide similar definitions, but the ACMP definition is my favourite.<\/p>\n Regardless of the model, a common thread that exists throughout is that no change ever happens in a vacuum: change affects the whole organization and all employees. The good news is that with properly planned change management, you can prepare your organization and employees within for success.<\/p>\n The Four Pillars of Change Management<\/strong><\/p>\n While there are many models and several different processes within each model, there are 4 tenets to change management, and they all revolve around people \u2013 both you and your employees:<\/p>\n Define and Understand the Change<\/em><\/p>\n Defining and understanding the change focuses a lot on you and your leadership team. It\u2019s imperative that you define what the change is and understand the need for change so that you can lead through the steps of promote, plan, implement and sustain. This ranges from determining the why through defining key objectives to determining the benefits to the organization and business. It means understanding the impact to your organization and people, including how they do their work and what they need to do it. And finally, it means determining how successful change will be sustained. The key here is that you must define and understand the change; if you don\u2019t, it\u2019s unlikely anyone else in your organization will understand it and the change you are wanting to make will likely fail.<\/p>\n Plan the Change<\/em><\/p>\n To make change happen, you must have a plan on how to make it happen. Every organization will also make change happen differently, so you will need to determine the way that is best for your organization, culture, and people.<\/p>\n What\u2019s unlikely to vary in change is:<\/p>\n Execute the Change<\/em><\/p>\n Now that you\u2019re done planning for change, next you need to execute. Included in the many change management models, there are different strategies you can deploy from creating a sense of urgency to build momentum or to overcome resistance between processes and employees within a company. Regardless of strategy, there are key aspects that should be included to affect change in a positive way:<\/p>\n Communicate the Change<\/em><\/p>\n You can have the best intentions and the best plan in place, but without effective communication, you can easily fail in your change efforts. The change must be clearly articulated and relevant to your people from the start and throughout the change process, so that they understand what they need to do and why they need to do it.<\/p>\n Communicate in a frequent and planned manner so they\u2019re supported by facts and data. It only takes 2-4 weeks without you letting employees knowhow things are going before they start to fill in the blanks with their own, and frequently wrong, assumptions and conclusions. Equally as important, you have to set the right tone for change. So, in addition to their heads you capture their hearts; always linking back to your corporate Mission, Vision, and Values. Finally, it is imperative to manage and communicate with your stakeholders, providing the right message at the right time ensuring continued support for your change.<\/p>\n In part 2 of this series, we\u2019ll take a more practical look at leading change and making it happen by adapting GE\u2019s Change Acceleration Process (CAP).<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.4.3″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.4.3″][et_pb_divider _builder_version=”4.4.3″][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ _builder_version=”4.4.3″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.4.3″][et_pb_button button_url=”\/insights” button_text=”More Insights” button_alignment=”center” admin_label=”Insights blog” _builder_version=”4.4.3″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#ffffff” button_bg_color=”#021d49″ button_border_width=”0″ button_border_color=”#ffffff” button_border_radius=”30″ button_font=”|700||on|||||” 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And while no business sits on its laurels and avoids change, it always amazes me how so many organizations get change management wrong. When things go wrong, blame is often misplaced, and that\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":14104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-osborne-insights-blog"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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