“Slowness to change usually means fear of the new.” – Philip Crosby
It is unlikely that anyone would deny that the contemporary business world is constantly evolving, becoming a better version of itself. As industry becomes more competitive than ever before, businesses are adapting to get ahead in the race. When a business decides to transform any aspect of it’s operations, an effective change management process is vital to adopt the change without hindrances.
Is your organisation efficient enough to foster a smooth change management process?
The answer to this question lies in the strategy you adopt while implementing the change in your business. It is necessary for you to effectively understand the process involved in making any change and create a unique change management strategy.
But first things first, to understand strategy, it is crucial to understand the definition of the process.
Change management comprises multiple strategies and tactics adopted by a business in order to smoothly adopt a change for enhancing the efficiency of a business. A successful change management strategy will lead to more productive results. This will contribute to the overall growth of an organisation.
An Effective Way to Implement Change Management Strategy
1.Identify the key areas
The first and the most important step in the change management process is to identify the key areas that require transformation. To successfully achieve that you can conduct various strategic analyses such as gap analysis or SWOT analysis for internal scrutiny of your business operations. For the investigation of the external environment, you can use the management tools like PESTLE and VRIO analysis.
Effectively analysing internal and external factors will help in identifying the key gaps that need to be addressed.
2. Define the change
Once you have assessed the need for the change, you should define all aspects and parameters involved. If you are leading the change, you need to be confident about the idea and purpose otherwise how will you persuade others?
The following are the fundamental parameters that you as a leader need to define.
What is the vision behind the change?
- Is this change aligning with your core values?
- How would you visualise the success of the change?
- How the idea of the change will be communicated to teams?
- Who will be a part of the change team?
Once you have defined the change in its entirety, it becomes easier for you to pitch the idea to the stakeholders. This brings us to our next step in the change management process.
3. Get all stakeholders on board
Your major stakeholders may include customers, investors, and employees. The major reason behind defining the need for change is that it gives you enough conviction to get your stakeholders on board.
It is essential to openly pitch your idea of change and to hear their feedback and suggestions. Collaboration on your plan will assist in assessing the positives and negatives. Ensuring the majority of your stakeholders on board with your change plans to reduce the chances of resistance in the future. The more support, the smoother it is to make the transition and gain maximum benefit from the change management process.
4. Upskill your employees
Getting stakeholders on board does not mean that your job is done!. The next step is to prepare your team in accordance with what is needed to make the change integration successful.
Whenever a business is making changes to achieve positive results, it is essential your employees are on the same page. You will potentially need to upskill your team to support the changes. Keep in mind, this will assist in enhancing the engagement of employees along with enhancing their efficiency and productivity.
If your employees are not effectively trained, the change is unlikely to be successful. Your leadership team also need to be fully versed with the changes and potential impacts to support and manage the implementation of new processes.
5. Implement change management models
Once your team is ready to actively participate in the change process, you are ready to move to the implementation of the change management model.
The change management models refer to multiple theories created to extract strong insights from the organisation. Based on these insights, companies can plan and execute the change management process in a strategic way.
Models can be an effective way to create a successful change management plan. Change management models that are highly regarded around the globe include;
- Lewin’s change management model
- Mckinsey 7S model of change management
- Kotter’s change management theory
- Prosci ADKAR change management model
- Nudge theory
- Bridges’ transition model
- Kubler-Ross’ change management framework
- Satir change management model
Depending on the structure of your organisation, you can select the most appropriate model and can utilise it effectively.
6. Track the implementation of results
Monitoring and tracking are imperative for continuous improvement. You want a transformation to yield benefits in an incremental way and this is where the measurement of performance becomes essential. Once you implement a change, monitoring results will ensure long-term success. Your analysis will highlight area’s that require further improvement and it will give you a clear picture of how well you managed the change, what was executed and where are the gaps that are yet to get fulfilled.
You can establish and measure the results based on various key performance indicators in terms of revenue, the productivity of your team, and so on. These KPIs will indicate the success or failure of your change management efforts.
Once your change management process is fool proof, you can start working towards your long-term strategic aims by establishing measures that lead to continuous improvement.
Change is the only constant thing in the world. Effectively managing change will provide you with a competitive advantage and capability to adapt to new challenges.
Article by Kiara Miller
Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.” Wayne Dyer’s thoughts are well suited to Kiara Miller. She has been working as a content marketing professional at ‘The Speakingnerd’. Her passion for writing is also visible in the innovative joys of material she provides to her readers.