Have you ever been through an organisational change where you felt lost, clueless and/or feared for your future? If you have had such an experience, it is likely that you have experienced ineffective or non-existent change management.
Change is part of everyday life in an organisation: from simple changes to brutal changes such as restructuring, office moves, teleworking policies, acquisitions, AI…. changes of all kinds are part of the cocktail our brains drink every day. But how to make the cocktail (or sometimes the shot) bearable and not create a hangover? Change Management is part of the answer.
What is Change Management and why is it important?
Change management is the discipline that provides structured guidance on how to prepare and support people for change , supporting them in moving from an initial state to a desirable state. It is fundamental especially in high impact projects. It does not mean that for a simple change like moving the coffee machine out of place you cannot apply change management techniques, but we are clear that we are not going to put in place a whole change management for simple situations.
Let’s look at some interesting figures:
- Prosci has found that projects with excellent change management are seven times more likely to meet or exceed their objectives compared to those with poor or no change management.
- Prosci also reports that applying excellent organisational change management to projects correlates with a 65% probability of projects finishing on time and a 71% probability of projects meeting budget.
- The Project Management Institute (PMI) found that organisations that practice change management have twice as many successful strategic initiatives.
- McKinsey states that 72% of transformations are not fully successful, the main causes being that leaders do not provide sufficient support for change and employee resistance.
- Gartner reports that during 2022 the average employee will face 10 relevant organisational changes vs. only 2 in 2016. It also reports that employee productivity can decrease by up to 30% during periods of change without proper management, due to uncertainty and lack of clarity.
- Just to quote a few figures.
My premises for better Change Management
I will share with you the premises that have helped me the most on this path, on which I am still learning:
- Manage change as if it were a project: set out a vision, identify a scope, identify stakeholders, measure impacts, mitigate risks, choose a model that structures the actions (among many possible ones, such as Kotter, ADKAR, Rogers, Kubler-Ross Curve…) and frames the path, make a concrete plan of actions, execute, reflect and adjust. Change itself is a project, and needs to be managed as such. Change Management disciplines usually cover these aspects very well.
- Facilitate change as if no one is stopping you: However, doing Change Management ‘by the book’ is not enough to get people to change: you have to facilitate change. This includes executing and experiencing the planned actions with a strong focus on connecting with people and creating the optimal conditions for buy-in. Activities such as retrospectives of change, empathising, inviting people to propose better ways to make the change, providing tools to deal with emotions, generating conversations and spaces for reflection, facilitating powerful questions, empathy maps of change, facilitating reframing techniques, etc. Participatory change has much greater impact and can increase success by 24%.
- Train and communicate as if only your first step will conquer: Organisations do not change at the end of courses and email communications. Training is very important, but it is not the only thing. Communications campaigns have high benefits, but they are not enough either. Training and communicating is only the first step! Establishing listening spaces, having real-time conversations when relevant events occur, practices such as the Obeya Rooms, spaces between senior management and employees, understanding the reality of employees, managing expectations, providing support and many other actions that go beyond an email campaign. It is no coincidence that 74% of employees think that leaders need to do more to understand people.
- Intervene in systemic factors like there is no tomorrow: Contact with people, seeing new perspectives and promoting new beliefs has an impact. But let’s not forget the other side of the coin: intervening in systemic elements such as tools, policies, objectives or physical space, have a brutal impact on our behaviour. Focusing on trying to convince people to change with a thousand arguments does not usually work. Better to focus on the purpose of the change and generate the environment that is most consistent with the desired behaviour.
- Build psychological safety like a garden: Psychological safety is the key to team success. If you don’t have a safe environment, forget about genuine, deep change (and be prepared for cosmetic change). If people are afraid to speak up and think out loud, people will not participate, contribute, question, or anything… people will nod their heads in meetings just to be polite. If there is a good foundation (trust, respect, transparency), the seeds grow better. If there is a good foundation, change flourishes better. Not surprisingly, Gartner reports that people who feel trust are 2.6 times more likely to embrace change, and those who feel cohesion with the team are 1.8 times more likely.
- Adapt change strategy and actions as if culture ate you for breakfast: They say that culture eats the strategy for breakfast…. and if you don’t want your change to go badly, I have found it helpful to adapt activities to the cultural style of each organisation. Is your organisation very reserved, observant and cautious? Don’t expect your first workshop to have very high participation. Aim for activities that challenge the culture without generating rejection. Is your organisation black and change is white? aim for a grey transition. And I’m not the only one who thinks this way: 88% of people think that cultural awareness is very relevant to managing change.
- Learn as if you were studying a career again: There is a lot of theory behind change. I know… we want the practice. But knowing the basics has helped me a lot. Learning and training in change management models, neuroscience, understanding our brains, knowing myself and how I am in the face of change, etc. Other lines of knowledge include culture, organisational development and Artificial Intelligence. Moreover, this type of knowledge will be very useful in any role, organisation and in your personal life.
- Do Change Management like diving into a swimming pool: There is no perfect way to do Change Management, but doing something is better than doing nothing. Of course it’s not about doing it wrong. But if you already have notions of organisational change, get started! Something that helps me a lot is to think that if I do nothing, I am influencing anyway! There will never be perfect change management: there will always be dissatisfaction… but we can do our best. We can start small. And remember that we are all agents of change.
- When nothing changes, look in a mirror: not all change management has the desired outcome. Sometimes, you will feel that nothing changes. Introspection has helped me a lot: what am I learning about myself in this experience, how would I do it in the future, in what sense I don’t change and would like to be more flexible and adaptable? I take responsibility, but I am also aware that change requires a collective effort. I am grateful for the learning and move on.
I could add more premises, but these summarise very well to date the ones that have been most important to me. I am sure I will add more in the coming months.
Finally, at the beginning of these lines I indicated that Change Management is only one part of the success of projects of any scope; other factors such as leadership, type of culture, available resources, external factors, level of maturity of the organisation, among other aspects, also enter into the success equation.
– Claudia Salas-
