Change management

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Question - is there a formula for persuading an organisation to alter course?

Answer - there is, and it seems to work if it is followed meticulously, which requires a lot of detailed planning

Key points

Ultimately, there are 3 pre-conditions for successful change management:

1. There needs to be a level of dissatisfaction amongst top management as to the current situation
2. There has to be a clear vision as to what the alternative would look like
3. There has to be an agreed plan as to how to implement the alternative vision

Change management is fundamentally about ensuring that the leadership of the organisation remains resolute, changing people's perceptions within the organisation, and embedding the change. To achieve this you will require a fully committed, high performance team:

So, things to think about are:

1. Obtaining unequivocal top management leadership - it must be amongst the top 2 or 3 issues top managers ask about as they tour the organisation
2. Establishing the team that will drive the change management project, and ensuring that the key team roles are allocated. This is not to say that a team needs different people for all roles. Individuals will often be capable of 2-3 roles, but all roles must be covered off to ensure successful team work:

• Sponsor - who will be specifically held accountable for the success of the program
• Chair - who will oversee proceedings
• Ideas person - who will generate new ideas
• Change agent - who will be a driver for change
• Questioner - who will ask all the awkward questions
• Carer - who will ensure the welfare of everyone inside the team
• Networker - who will liase with others outside the team
• Monitor - who will check the progress of activities
• Doer - who will ensure that things get done

3. Establishing a persuasive "burning platform" - why is there a compelling need for change?
4. Creating a compelling vision of the end result of the change, describing what the behavioral differences will be
5. Building a common understanding of the objectives of the program, both between the sponsors and the team and within the team itself
6. Gaining commitment from each individual member of the team to achieving those objectives
7. Giving the team a name
8. Running team building activities
9. Developing systems to reinforce the supporters of change and to neutralise or win over its critics
10. Developing a plan of action, including .......
11. Developing an exhaustive two-way communications process with everyone in the organisation who will be affected by the change
12. Identifying where the program will most likely falter, and developing processes to guide the program through these difficult periods
13. Developing agreed milestones and measurements for the program, and being willing to critically assess performance and to modify the plan to find alternative routes to achieve the vision
14. Monitoring the progress of the program against milestones and measurements
15. Developing infrastructure to ensure that the change is embedded in the organisation - resources, processes, rewards, competencies & skills, development

Four stages of buying in to change

There are four stages in the reaction to change:

1. denial - it won't happen/nothing is wrong

2. resistance - over my dead body

3. exploration - what does it mean for me? Might there be something in it?

4. commitment - it's going to happen anyway, I might as well.......

If you recognise these four stages, you can be prepared especially for stage 2, when the snipers come out and try to ambush you. This is the most difficult moment in a change management process because it is usually when things are going particularly badly, and everyone is beginning to wonder whether the strategy is a good one, and whether the old approach wasn't better.

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