It is change that is the only constant in business and life in general. To put it bluntly, if your organisation is not willing to effect internal changes whenever required, you will be left far behind by the forward thinking competition.
Define Change Management
Change management is the organised, deliberate, and strategic processes by which an organisation induces and effects change within itself. The British Academy for Training and Development offers a professional training course in London.That opens up incredible opportunities for innovation, success, and employee growth and performance enhancement. These courses will enrich your leadership map and prepare you to transform your organisation and its design. Change is ever present and often challenging, but it's a necessary enabler in business.
In other words, it implies organisational changes rather than limitative changes like:
Better functioning of teams and processes within the organisationIntroduce to the team new tools and technologiesAn overall shift in operational and business goal
All major changes are changes to the way things are done in the company.Usually, this process involves understanding why a change initiative is needed, the establishment of clear objectives, and the design of a change management plan that will effectively communicate and implement the changes. It involves putting a lot of emphasis on the human side of change: recognising that employees may be fearful or uncertain and acknowledging and managing those issues. Change management effectively makes an environment where individuals can obtain support, resources, and skills to adjust within the new environment smoothly.
Main elements of a successful change management strategy
Change management specialists and academics have adopted their strategic approaches to change management in their own schools of thought over the years.Certainly an article by itself is worth delving in more detail for a discussion of all these. For our present purposes, we analysed these exhaustive models to better comprehend the key steps organisations have to take in facilitating change.
1. Recognising the Need for Change
All business change management should begin in the same way. When one or several members of your team have an inkling that things are not going as planned and much change is required to get things back on track.
This initial recognition can happen at any level in the organisation.
Ground level team members might find a bottleneck or blockage in their workflow.Line managers may realise minor dips in productivity or missed opportunities for an increase in productivity.Top executives would spot losses and inefficiencies capable of translating to savings and heightened profits.
Once the sign of a solution has been found, you then move on to locating the issue. Instead of simply slapping a bandage over the problem, instead, tear it out by the roots and replace it with something much higher quality. It will be a root cause analysis that drives your change management processes since it will focus your team's attention on making worthwhile and forceful changes to your operations.
2. Establish Goals and Their Intended Effects
Naturally, you will want to flesh out the whole rationale for your decision: to state the objectives for the initiative once you've been clear about what the change is about.
For instance, every change management instance you initiate would need a separate one for which you will attempt to measure the intended effect of removing that bottleneck from the current system.
First, get down into the nitty gritty of your overarching quantitative goals. Depending on where the change is occurring and how it was initiated, this may refer to certain OKRs and KPIs or it might focus more on the business' finances.
Then, think qualitatively to form a picture of your own organisation after the change has been affected. Think not just of the visible and tangible improvements ,streamlined workflows, available resources but also the underlying benefits of that change: increased employee success and satisfaction, better team culture, and so much more.
The clearer, more concrete, and more attainable your vision for the future becomes, the more you can begin to form the basis of your approach to the current change. Although the specifics can follow later, by this time, you should at the very least have an idea of whether your forthcoming change will be adaptive, transitional, or transformational.
3. Engage All Stakeholders
Assuming that some team members are already on board with the imminent organizational changes, the team leaders will have to secure buy-in among all their superiors and subordinates. In this case, one would want to start at the top and work down.
When proposing an organizational change to the top executive, you should focus on the profit and productivity aspect. This normally means presenting your proposal in terms of cost reduction, revenue generation, or the future opportunities for financial gain.
Now you should focus on securing employee buying with respect to the change. That includes:
Identifying who these stakeholders are and how they will be impacted by the change.Communicating what positive benefits these stakeholders would receive as a result of the change.Giving a fair indication of what these individuals will have to do throughout this initiative.
At this stage, it’s also important to reinforce support and guidance to your employees and create a low risk environment for the change.
4. Develop Your Plan Collaboratively
In fact, this is the time for you to start bringing everyone into the room and collaborating on a plan for organisational change.
This will lead you back again to the overall objective of the project with all your stakeholders: rephrasing the discussion in terms that matter to each individual. You retain power at the end for defining OKRs, KPIs, etc., but listening to your employees at this stage will shape the goals you set up for them much more realistically.
Then you can engage your team in assessing the resources necessary for implementing this change in an effective, timely, and cost effective manner. Lastly, plan a timeline for the plan based on these available resources and any word you may have received from above.
Once all involved parties know:
What needs to be doneWhen it should be doneWhat resources are available to make it happen
As you put this plan together with your team, keep everyone involved to ensure best practices are followed consistently and that potential problems within your plan are identified and addressed immediately.
5. Activate and Effect Change According to Plans
At this moment, you will be ready to go into the actual implementation of the planned organisational changes.Depending on your individual circumstances, this implementation phase will look different from one organization to another. In all such cases, however, there are a few good practices to consider.
For maintaining alignment and direction for everyone, there should be open channels of communication among all stakeholders. Given the inherent uncertainty of organisational change, any missed messages and miscommunications will only add to the confusion of your team.