The face of Change Management
All organization are conducting some kind of change activities in order to improving operations and to sustain competition. Often, major changes are made by launching som kind of Project Management activities, however, that is only one part of Change Management. In order to achieve success successfully you need to do involve individual people as well.
As organisation is build by humans, for humans and managed by human around some common and unified objectives describe in a misson statement. It’s therefore key to understand how people or more specifically individuals in an organization act and engage in contributing to the objectives, particular in order to carry out any change management ambitions. Individuals in an organisation ought to understand what is required by them in order to enable and contribute to the change that an organisation are looking for to achieve. And, in order to understand the level of contribution, there are principles that need to be explained and to be in place for successfully Change Management Projects.
As a matter of fact, research demonstrated that an organisation change will happen and be successful if 8 of 10 project participants meet their objects. Sound simple, but might be hard to enforce without appropriated insight.
The Prosci ADKAR model defines a few basic fundamentals for successfully Change Management journeys, which involves preparing the organisation both technically as well as to support individuals moving through changes, so that employees successfully adopt to the changes. In essence the Prosci ADKAR model focusing on prepare people in the organisation in order to move people from current state to the future state.
Change journeys always starts with the rational or the Reason. That is explaning for people in an organisation why change is necessary. Often this requires discussions amongst teams in order to create clarity and engagement. By understanding the Reason and how to move from current state under a period of transition, will help organisation to reach its future state. And, since organisation is build by people, its most likely that the organisation also will require discussions due to Individual Change, as people will need to adopt to new skills, processes etc in order to and caring out their jobs in the future.
The degree of Adaptation, by people is vital during a transition phase. We can for example, purchase the state of art of a new system. However, if the people within an organisation do not adopt, learn, use and experienced the benefit of a new technical solution, it will not be a successful change management project and in the end of the day, the change objectives will not be accomplished.
Consequently, Change Management also requires an Enabling Framework, to manage potential organizational short comings as well as employee resistance due to change. In short, this framework is a toolbox of methodologies and techniqueues for coaching and enabling individuals to adopt to new values, skill and behaviors etc. Furthermore it’s providing senior management with mechanisms for communication and overcoming organisation challenges or resistances to change whatever reason it might be.
Finally, the Prosci methodology for Change Management, distinguishing between Project Management, which focus on the Technical Solution implementation and the Change Management i.e People Adaptation focusing on the emloyees within the organisation. In sum, a successfully Change or Transitions Programs includes both Technical and People side.The last part is often overlooked, but it is the key to successful change journeys.