Change Management

[tiendoan]

Instilling supportive behaviours

Effective change management is much more than introducing a new set of processes or practices. Its about getting to grips with how the new environment will look and feel and what behaviours will enable your organisation to thrive. Instilling a set of supportive behaviours to underpin your organisation is essential to achieve your goals.

Change comes from doing things and behaving differently. Built from the top, your leaders need to understand the crucial role they play, and be coached to practice the new way of working and behaving, so that it spreads virally.

Change management agents, often the “opinion leaders”, should be mobilised within your organisation to really drive and embed the desired culture. People listen to people, and the best way to encourage change is through the trusted and respected people that form the bedrock of your organisation.

Effective Communication

Bland progress updates contribute very little towards the success of a project. Employees will probably be inundated with various communications all vying for attention – so yours will need to stand out.

Your approach to communications and engagement should deliver effective, targeted communications which are on time, on brand and on message.

Youll need to identify and prioritise your stakeholders, analyse and segment your audience and then build a key message framework to form the bedrock of your messaging. This means that therell be a familiarity and consistency to your communications, which is essential considering the complexity of change management programmes nowadays.

Think about what communication channels you have available by conducting an in-depth channel analysis. Therell often be gaps to fill, thats when you get creative, but often you should be able to work with what you have. This will help ensure the most appropriate and effective channel is used for each message.

Finally, and probably the most neglected part of a communications strategy, is measurement. A useful trick of the trade is to begin with the end in mind, which will help you learn and make changes along the way. Capture what success look like, and develop ways to check the pulse of the organisation as your change management programme develops, then act on the insight and put the end user at the heart of your approach.
Embedding Change

Delivering a change management programme doesnt end on its immediate completion. Change needs to stand the test of time and be fit for the future. Your new way of working will need be sufficiently embedded within your organisation to ensure it really sticks when challenged.

Recognising the symptoms of change fatigue can be key in ensuring the success of your programme. By its very nature, change can be unwieldy and unstable. No amount of advanced planning can absolutely guarantee success. Its often what happens after completion that determines whether youve achieved your goals or not.

There are a number of ways to demonstrate that the change is actually the way we do things now:

provide a steady stream of evidence proving that the new way of working is happening and being successful reward alignment with the new way of working and evidence the required behaviours

build it into the fabric of your organisations systems, standards and process, and refer to it in your business strategy measure your progress by aligning personal development plans to recognise the new way of working

Making Change Stick is a tricky business, and while most companies are able to make change happen its those that understand that the process doesnt stop when the final milestone is delivered, that can really thrive.