Change Management Strategies

Organisations are constantly changing, often as a result of events which affect the status quo, such as process improvements, the introduction of new technology, organisational restructuring or mergers.

The greatest challenge for organisations implementing such change is to achieve the cultural or behavioural change that is often required to achieve the planned benefits, even when it is recognised that change is required.

Behavioural change in organisations does not just happen. Typically, change will only occur if an initiative has direction, leadership, very clear goals and benefits for its key stakeholders; and of course, all of these are communicated well and in a timely manner.

For Change to be successful, change management needs to be practised for some time, to ensure sustainability. Lasting cultural change will only be achieved by creative planning, skilful communication and by developing a coherent change strategy that will drive, achieve and sustain real change.

A Strategy for Change

Three important principles are central to managing change:

• Change management is not the goal in itself: it is a means to an end, and the end is an improvement in an organisation’s performance. It is about effectively managing a process that will lead to an environment where an improvement in performance are realised.

• The "targets" of change must play an active role in realising the change: Successful Change projects will identify and communicate the vision, letting the employees know they are expected and empowered to play an active role in realising the planned benefits.

• An organisation’s employees are their greatest asset: potentially, they are also the greatest challenge. For a vision to become reality, those at the “coal-face” must believe in the project and have the desire to achieve it.

There are many strategies and techniques to support Change Management, particularly those aimed at impacting the values, attitudes and habits that we as individuals demonstrate while we are at work. The fundamentals of change are contained within five key steps.

Change Management  & Benefits Planning

Before launching a project, the team should conduct the following:

• Benefits Identification: The early identification and agreement of the benefits and in particular the outcomes that the change programme is to produce is essential.

• Executive Sponsorship: sponsors must communicate and drive strategic business objectives. Gaining effective sponsorship and leadership is the first step in the change to be implemented.

• Readiness Assessment: An assessment of the readiness of the organisation to adopt the changes required will enable a realistic implementation plan to be developed.

• Benefits  Realisation Planning: Having identified the benefits of the programme it is important to detail the plan to show all the key actions and responsibilities to achieve the required change and realise the planned benefit

• Resistance Management: A major obstacle to successful Change Management is employee resistance at any level, typically due to: lack of awareness about the change, fear of change, fear of losing control. It is essential to identify and manage all stakeholder groups to minimise resistance and build support.

Change Management Execution

Once the project has been launched, the project should conduct the following 4 key execution steps.

• Communications Plan: If staff understand what the change is and why it's required, how to implement the change becomes far less of an issue. It is critical to develop carefully structured communications plans and mechanisms to inform staff about the Change programme and how it will affect them.

• Implement the Change Management Plan: It is imperative to monitor the actions within the Change Management plan, continuously assessing progress and if necessary revising the plan accordingly.

• Education & Training Plan: A key element of the Change Management plan is Education & Training, where the aim is to provide the employees in the organisation with the skills, tools & techniques required for them to perform their role  effectively as the changes are being implemented.

• Active Resistance Management: By actively listening and monitoring feedback on the panned changes during implementation, to identify any areas where resistance is being encountered.

Change Management Reinforcement

Once the change programme is underway, there are three further steps focused upon sustaining the change.

• Measuring Benefits: Measuring the benefits delivered by the programme assessing the progress achieved against the benefits and the outcomes identified at the start.

• Identify Gaps and Manage Resistance: If the some of the anticipated benefits have not been realised this may be because of gaps in the actions undertaken or unexpected resistance. Identification of gaps and resistance enables the identification of corrective actions to reinforce the change.

• Reinforcing Change: Having achieved the new behaviours, process, practices etc, it is all too common for organisations to slip back to operating and behaving along the original familiar lines.

On a regular basis, monitor the organisational performance relative to the goals of the Change Management project, developing where appropriate corrective actions to reinforce the desired changes.

Email today to find out more on how to we can support you with your Change Management programmes with change management strategies, change management planning, and benefits planning and realisation.

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