Change Management

Change Management – Frequently Asked Questions

What is meant by Change Management?
Why is Change Management Needed?
What is Organizational Change Management?
What are the principles of change management?
What is in a change management strategy?
Kotter’s 8 Step Change Management Model?
ADKAR: a model for change?
What is the difference between Change management and Project management?
Change Management Steps?
Change Management in Project Management?
Change Management Examples?
change Management Tools?

What is Change Management?

Change Management is the process of preparing, supporting, and helping individuals, teams, and organizations in making organizational change. The most common changes that need to be managed include:

Technology Upgrades
Process Changes
Crisis Management
Customer or Industry Changes
Pressure from new Competitors
Acquisitions
Mergers
Down-Sizing
Organizational Restructuring
Leadership Changes

Change Management includes methods for redirect or redefines the use of resources, process, budget allocations, or other modes of operation that significantly change an organization.

What is Organizational Change Management?

Organizational Change Management considers full organizational impacts and what needs to change. Organisational Change Management refers to how people, teams, division, and other stakeholders are affected by any organizational transition.

Organizational Change Management deals with broad disciplines, from behavioral and social sciences to information technology and the organizational vision and mission.

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence – it is to act with yesterday’s logic.”
– Peter Drucker

Why is Change Management Needed?

Globalization and Technology

Globalization and technology innovation drives a constantly evolving organizational environment. The rapidly changing environment demands an ever-increasing need for change, and therefore change management. Innovations such as the following are driving change:

Cloud
Internet of Things (IoT)
Social Media
Mobile Devices
Connectivity
Big Data
Artificial Intelligence
Self-Driving Cars
Blockchain
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality
3D Printers

Emerging Environmental and Political Challenges

In addition to technology and globalization, there are other significant external factors that are leading to social and political movements that will place additional pressure on organizations to change. Some of the current issues that will drive social and political movements include:

Climate Change and Drought
Water and Food Security
Trade Wars
Global Debt
Demands for Regulation
Terrorism / Extremism
Refugee Movements
Conflicts / Wars
Unemployment / Poverty

Easily Accessible Information

These technologies are also increasing the availability of information and therefore, accountability. Easily accessible information has resulted in unprecedented scrutiny from stockholders and the media, resulting in management pressure to respond.

With so much external change, organizations need to become agile change managers. The ability to manage and adapt to organizational change is an essential ability in the workplace today. Organizational structure, culture, and processes make it difficult and challenging to change therefor the need for professional Change Management.

Market Share Impacts

Organizational change is driven by exterior innovations and trends rather than internal factors. When these developments occur, the organizations that adapt quickest creates a competitive advantage for themselves, while the companies that refuse to change get left behind. Inaction can result in drastic profit and market share losses.

Stakeholder Impacts

Organizational change directly affects all departments, employees, customers, partners, and suppliers. The entire organization and its stakeholders need to to learn how to handle changes. The effectiveness of change management can strongly impact on employee morale and stakeholder satisfaction.

“Change before you have to.”
– Jack Welch

John Kotter’s 8-Step Process for Leading Change

John Kotter, Professor of Leadership, at the Harvard Business School, and a pioneer of change management invented the popular 8-Step Process for Leading Change. The eight stages for leading Change include:

Create a Sense of Urgency: This initial step is part of educating and communicate the need for change. This step aims to help team members to see the need for change. This can be achieved by creating an aspirational opportunity statement that communicates the urgency of acting to change.
Build a Guiding Coalition: A coalition of active stakeholders is required to sponsor, guide, coordinate, and communicate the necessary changes.
Form a Strategic Vision and Initiatives: Clarify and communicate how to make that future state a reality through an Action Plan linked directly to the Strategic Vision.
Enlist a Volunteer Army: Large-scale change requires the large numbers of team members committing to a joint Action Plan and Vision. Committed Team members need to be engaged to drive and champion the change.
Enable Action by Removing Barriers: In Organisation Change Management barriers such as inefficient processes and hierarchies need to be removed to enable change across departmental silos to create organizational-wide change.
Generate Short-Term Wins: All wins, no matter how small are stepping stones to the final result and need to be recognized, celebrated, and communicated. This is required to demonstrate progress and to energize and nurture the effort for change.
Sustain Acceleration: With every win, increasing momentum is required to change systems, structures, and policies. A relentless effort is needed to drive change, so the change does not stale until the vision is achieved.
Institute Change: Communicate and demonstrate how the changes are contributing to the organization’s success. Reinforcement of the change needs to be reinforced to ensure that the change is permanent.

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”
– Winston Churchill

Change Management FAQs to be covered with our Next Instalment

What are the Factors of successful Change Management?
ADKAR: a model for Change Management?
What is the difference between Change Management and Project management?
Change Management Steps?
Change Management in Project Management?
Change Management Examples?
change Management Tools?

“There is nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency something that should not be done at all.”
– Peter Drucker

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Thought-Provoking Change Management Quotes?

“Change before you have to.” – Jack Welch

“The rate of change is not going to slow down anytime soon. If anything, competition in most industries will probably speed up even more in the next few decades.” – John P. Kotter

“If you want to make enemies, try to change something.” – Woodrow Wilson

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” – Maya Angelou

“Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” – John F. Kennedy

“The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.” – Charles Kettering

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence – it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” – Peter Drucker

“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.” – Niccolo Machiavelli

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” – Winston Churchill

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” – Barack Obama

“People can’t live with change if there’s not a changeless core inside them. The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about, and what you value.” – Stephen Covey

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin

“Everybody has accepted by now that change is unavoidable. But that still implies that change is like death and taxes; it should be postponed as long as possible, and no change would be vastly preferable. But in a period of upheaval, such as the one we are living in, change is the norm.” – Peter F. Drucker

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

“We cannot change anything until we accept it.” – Carl Jung

“Future shock is the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time.” – Alvin Toffler

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. – Amelia Earhart

. Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots. – Victor Hugo

“Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.” – Steve Jobs

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. – Lao Tzu

“Change your thoughts and you change your world.” – Norman Vincent Peale

If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary. – Jim Rohn

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg.”
– C. S. Lewis

Books about Change Management?

Leading Change: An Action Plan from the World’s Foremost Expert on Business Leadership, by John Kotter, 1988
ADKAR: A Model for Change in business, government, and our community, by Jeff Hiatt, 2006
Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions, by Holger Rathgeber and John Kotter, 2006
A Sense of Urgency, by John Kotter, 2008
Making Sense of Change Management, by Esther Cameron, 2004
The Effective Change Manager’s Handbook: Essential Guidance to the Change Management Body of Knowledge, by Nicola Busby, Richard Smith, Ranjit Sidhu, David King, Dan Skelsey, 2014
Lean Change Management: Innovative Practices for Managing Organizational Change, by Jason Little, 2014
Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, 2010
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t, by James C. Collins, 2001
Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson, 1998
The Change Leader’s Roadmap: How to Navigate Your Organization’s Transformation, by Dean Anderson and Linda Ackerman Anderson, 2001
The Theory and Practice of Change Management, by John Hayes, 2002
The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations, by John Kotter, 2002
Managing Transitions: Making The Most Of Change, by William Bridges, 1991
Managing at the Speed of Change: How Resilient Managers Succeed and Prosper Where Others Fail, by Daryl Conner, 1993
Managing Transitions, 25th Anniversary Edition: Making the Most of Change, by Susan Bridges and William Bridges, 2017
HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Change Management by Harvard Business Review, John P. Kotter, W. Chan Kim, Renée A. Mauborgne, 2011
Change Management, by Jeff Hiatt and Timothy J. Creasey, 2006
Beyond Change Management: How to Achieve Breakthrough Results Through Conscious Change Leadership. by Dean Anderson and Linda Ackerman Anderson, 2001
Managing in a Time of the Great Change, by Peter Drucker, 1995
Managing Change, Creativity, and Innovation, by Constantine Andriopoulos and Patrick Dawson, 2008
Managing and Leading People Through Organizational Change: The Theory and Practice of Sustaining Change Through People, by Julie Hodges, 2016
Agile Change Management: A Practical Framework for Successful Change Planning and Implementation, by Melanie Franklin, 2014
Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture: Based on the Competing Values Framework, by Kim S. Cameron and Robert E. Quinn, 1999
The Change Cycle: How People Can Survive and Thrive in Organizational Change, by Ann Salerno and Lillie Brock, 2008
Leading Change, by John Kotter, 2012
Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation, by Tim Brown, 2009
Managing Change, Changing Managers, by Julian Randall, 2004
Change Management: A Guide to Effective Implementation, by James McCalman and Rob Paton, 1992
Change the Culture, Change the Game: The Breakthrough Strategy for Energizing Your Organization and Creating Accountability for Results, by Roger Connors and Thomas A. Smith, 2011