Change management is defined as a methodology for transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations to a required future state. When change management is done well, people feel involved in the change process and work collectively towards a common objective, getting benefits and delivering results. Change can happen in an organisation’s internal or external environment. As a result, this process of change is constant.
For an organization, Change management refers to the process of defining and implementing procedures and/or technologies to deal with changes in the business environment and to profit from changing opportunities.
For an Information technology (IT) system environment, Change management is a systematic approach for keeping track of the details of the system. Successful adjustment to change is as vital within an organization.
Features of Change Management
- It provides a competitive advantage, allowing organizations to swiftly and effectively implement change to meet market needs.
- It focuses on the ‘people side’ of change and targets leadership within all levels of an organization including executives, senior leaders, middle managers and line supervisors.
- It looks at the drivers of change in the business environment.
Elements of Change Management
A practical approach to dealing with change is central to all three aspects.
- Adapting to change
- Controlling change
- Effecting change
Change is a complex process and with many barriers to overcome. There is a need for effective managers to implement change programs within an organisation. These effective managers are proactive in creating solutions to improve the organisation’s performance. Manager must then manage and guide employees through the change process. It is in the interest of managers to try to forecast the changes that are likely to take place. In other words, they have to plan and drive change initiatives. This means managing the change process and making it part of an organisation’s strategy.
Process of adaptation in the change management process involves the establishment of a structured methodology for reacting to change requests in the business environment or establishing coping mechanisms for responding to changes in the workplace
Recognizing Obstacles to Change
The role of a leader is to break down resistance to change, and thus showing employees that committing to change will be advisable.
Employees often view change differently
Executive Level
At an executive level, change can sometimes equate to opportunity, and even personal gain. The management is always charged up to improve their processes and increasing customer service.
Employee Level
For an employee, any change could be a cause of discomfort together with a feeling of interruption. And many a times the change fails to sustain as employees’ resist the change at all costs.
It is important to take the employees’ view point before the final change. As by considering how employees define their roles and responsibilities, a way to propose change could be developed to make it as attractive for them as it is for leaders.
Introducing Change
When it comes to doing things differently, most people are either resistant or apathetic, and that makes introducing change a real challenge. So before you can move toward company transformation, you must learn how to overcome the inertia of resistance, and build an organization that’s oriented toward the change.
It extremely crucial to ensure that the employees understand the sense of urgency attached to the change which helps generate their interest in hearing and learning about the change and the final strategy behind it. So for if there is any change without a sense of urgency, then people would not be interested in understanding the reason for the change to occur, due to which they would not bother to prioritize.
Process of replacing roots of apprehensions with imperativeness
- Address: Firstly address the lack of data by providing employees with the required the information to disclose the need for change. So by providing clear information to all the employees, everyone realizes that change is needed and helps replace indolence with imperatives.
- Convey: It is required to convey a sense of emergency to employees in an effective manner that is you must expose a company weakness and show employees how the company is losing out by not capitalizing on opportunities. Keep in mind that this should be kept internal in order to control the consequences – and thus preventing them from eventually exploding in a public forum.
- Replace: It is always suggested to replace the inertia with imperatives which can be a possible challenge when all around you appears to be success. So in order to combat the root of inertia you must simply to bite the bullet and remove the benefits or stop the happy talks.
- Combat: It is at times suggested to set higher, and more ambitious goals to combat the low standards. This gives the employees to really strive and help challenge them to dismiss the sense of inertia.
Communicate Change
One of the key efforts on the part of a leader to introduce change is to effectively communicate change. Several important practices to bring to your communication as a leader are,
Explain the change clearly
It is always suggested to provide a clear and complete justification of the change and clear the assumptions that employees have when they are unclear about the change. Therefore, empower your employees by providing them with clear, accurate information about the situation.
Often declare your message
There is no need to over communicate the change. Since the details about the change contains all the new information for people, so communicate your message often, using various media and modes. Take the time to get the message across – this is going to take more than just an e-mail. So communicate your message over and over to really get through to people.
Be Empathetic
If you are being honest with the employees it gives them the credit that they deserve as intelligent employees. Put yourself in your employees’ shoes, and be as empathetic as possible.
Exhibit passion and intensity
Show your passion and be totally committed to the change as it will come across in your message and be infectious in your employees.
Make sure you walk the talk
Ensure that you are well aligned with the changes that you are expecting from your employees. At times it has been seen that change initiatives break down, as the top management do not follow to the changes themselves. Due to which, the ripple effect spreads quickly. Here, change leaders must be the first to set an example.
Eight-Step Change Management Process
Step 1: Urgency Creation
Any change is successful only if the whole company really desires it. That is if you are planning to make a change, you need to then make others want it. So you can create urgency around what you want to change and then create hype.
Step 2: Build a Team
Build a team to carry out the change from the people, who support you.
Step 3: Create a Vision
Vision statement makes everything clear to everyone. When you have a clear vision, your team members know why they are working on the change initiative.
Step 4: Communication of Vision
You have to communicate your vision across the company and that too frequently and at important forums. Use every chance to communicate your vision
Step 5: Removing Obstacles
Once the vision is communicated, then you will able to get the support of only a fraction of the staff. There are people, who resist the change. Remove obstacles and increase the motivation of your team as well the rest of the staff.
Step 6: Go for Quick Wins
Quick wins keep the momentum going. It is therefore suggested every now and then, to produce a quick win for different stakeholders, affected by the change process. But look for the long-term goals as well.
Step 7: Let the Change Mature
Usually change initiatives fail due to early declaration of success. Implemented the change 100% by the time you declare the victory, as people get discontented when they see the loop holes. Give change its own time to get incorporated to the people’s lives and organizational processes before you surrender.
Step 8: Integrate the Change
Try to integrate the change into people’s daily life and corporate culture. It is important to have a continuous monitoring mechanism in place to monitor whether every element of the change taking place in the organization.
