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Change Management
Organizational Change & Change Management
Change management is all about speeding up people's acceptance of organizational change. The faster that happens, the sooner you start to see the intended results.
Change management (or "managing change") involves:
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Creating and implementing training, communication, and reinforcement plans that address people's feelings about change and help them with transition--the path our hearts and minds take to get from the old way to the new way.
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Anticipating a change's effects on the technology, policies, processes, skills, norms, and reward systems that people are comfortable with today.
Our change management consulting and training services and products get you the results you want faster.
Our consultants with real-world experience help you:
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Make a compelling case for organizational change
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Assess your organization's change readiness using our easy-to-use tools
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Conduct additional assessments, where needed
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Plan for potential resistance to the change
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Involve people in the change management process
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Communicate about the change and the change management process
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Provide training and education that turns learning into performance
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Understand how corporate culture and values affect organizational change
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Reinforce the new behaviors through rewards or recognition
Whether your change initiative involves...
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Reorganization
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Merger or acquisition
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New technology
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New processes
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Or other changes;
And whether your change affects the entire enterprise or a single business unit, Organizational Development Resources' change management experts are there for you.
Change Management: Why Do It?
With change management, you dwell more on the "soft side" of the human element—people's feelings about the change, especially about what they stand to lose and gain. You anticipate potential resistance and figure out how to address it.
Why Change Is Often Hard: Resistance
If people care about the cause (the reason behind the change), they are more likely to accept change and do things the new way. However, strong negative feelings or apathy can cause resistance to organizational change. Resistance slows down acceptance of change.
Resistance can occur for many reasons, including:
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The rationale for the change is not clear or compelling (people are fine with the way things are)
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People's opinions and involvement are not being sought
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Past changes either weren't successful at all or weren't sustained
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People feel the personal cost is too high
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Trust in leadership is low ("fad of the month" syndrome)
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People feel like they are losing their expertise in an area and question their ability to learn something new
Successful Change Management
Successful change management is to understand and act on the concept of transition. Many people think that managing change stops when the change takes place. That's often where people go wrong. Organizational Development Resources will help you avoid this mistake, and others.
A change is an event that takes place at a point in time. Just because the change happened doesn't mean that people will immediately make the transition—the individualized emotional path that their hearts and minds must take to get from the old way to the new way.
Example:
When e-mail first came out, it appeared on computers (the "event"), but people didn't use it effectively right away. Many people felt that they lost control of the amount of information that they were exposed to at one time. They ignored e-mail and continued working the old way. Only once they completed their emotional transition did they begin to use it effectively. Only then did their employers start seeing higher communication productivity.
All people go through a transition process, with or without help. It involves three states:
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The present state, where people need to let go of the old way of doing things
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The in-between state, where people struggle with the new ways and experience confusion
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The future state, where people are doing things the new way, and they can barely remember how they used to do it
The Change Management Process
The change management process involves creating and implementing training, communication, and reinforcement plans that address people's feelings about change and help them with transition—the path our hearts and minds take to get from the old way to the new way. Your plans should include ways to measure progress toward the business goal that is driving the change initiative in the first place.
Managing change also involves anticipating a change's effects on the technology, policies, processes, skills, norms, and reward systems that people are comfortable with today.
Change Readiness Survey—A Change Management Tool
Purpose of the Change Readiness Survey
Part of your change management plan should be to find out how ready people are to support the proposed change—their change readiness. Why bother to do this?
You undertake organizational change to accomplish specific business goals, even though you know that change can be challenging, risky, expensive, uncomfortable, and full of obstacles.
You also recognize that when people in your organization support the change, you can achieve almost anything.
If you don't know how willing and able people are to support the change, then you risk being unprepared for the obstacles that will arise. Don't risk it!
Description of the Change Readiness Survey
How can you determine your organization's change readiness?
Use our uncomplicated, online Change Readiness Survey. It measures people's perceptions of the following factors that affect change readiness:
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Effectiveness and sustainability of past changes
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Trust in management's ability to implement successful change
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Willingness to overcome obstacles and experience discomfort for a while
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Available resources
Organizational Development Resources will help you analyze the survey results. If the survey shows that change readiness is low, we help you determine how to improve it. If readiness is high, we help you move forward with the change.
Change Management Training and Education
Training Services & Products
Constant change requires continuous renewal of knowledge and skills. Your company needs change management training that is relevant, cost-effective, and that changes behavior. Organizational Development Resources provides what you need. We:
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Offer customized change management training
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Provide Train-the-trainer services
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Help you identify other training that is needed for your change initiative to be successful (beyond the topic of "change management")
Training is available for the following audiences/stakeholder groups:
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Senior leaders who sponsor change
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Supervisors and managers who need to champion change and guide staff
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Change agents (project team members) who plan and implement change
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Employees affected by the change
Change management training objectives vary by audience group. However, the overall goal is to prepare each audience to effectively perform their role in the change management process, so that the change is successful. |
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