By Tom Marsicano, CEO of ‘and Change’, global advisory and change management agency
True innovation doesn’t always require genius. Instead, the organisations that succeed at transforming themselves, their products and their strategies for the better have structure, intent and dedication at their core.
While the average person doesn’t always realise the importance of proper management in adopting significant change, what they are concerned about is how a company, a financial institution or government is capable of serving their ever-changing needs.
In a world where change is the only constant, change capability is at a premium, and the companies that fail to realise this are already at a severe disadvantage. When an organisation must implement change – from new processes to staff restructuring to entering new markets (or all of these together) – a lack of proper oversight can be devastating. Developing the capability to manage the major developments in an organisation properly requires significant investment of time, human resources, strategy and, of course, a budget. But the ROI is good – financial, social and reputational.
Research shows that the majority of changes fail, often due to a lack of care taken in the change management process – usually a result of low change capability. Drivers of this capability include how leaders show up in change, what governance we apply to the people side of projects, how we build change management competency, the structures we put in place to support change management throughout the organisation, and processes that support change management.
Building change capability
At and Change, our mandate is to help organisations build change capability and create, train, and monitor networks of change agents to manage their future transitions.
When it comes to developing these capabilities, the speed at which this happens varies across entities. Governmental organisations, for example, usually require broad consensus from a variety of stakeholders, but once these footholds are secured, the processes to create valuable networks of change managers are the same.
Preparation is vital
Firstly, preparation is vital. Mapping the organisation’s strategy to its change capability is a good departure point. Identifying the right methodology, such as the proven Prosci system that we subscribe to, will help you develop your first change strategies.
Through your chosen methodology, you can begin to develop the language of change, to ensure that everyone involved in the process has an unambiguous understanding of what is to come.
Maintain your goals
Once the language is established, it is important to maintain short, medium and long-term goals and drive them out. Even when a new system is seemingly successfully implemented, most organisations believe that the hard part is over.
However, maintaining these changes requires long-term planning, ongoing monitoring of how it is received and evolving your behaviour to meet new challenges.
Choose the right people
Choosing the right people to become involved in these long, mid and short-term goals is essential. From a strategic perspective, one has to rely on a leader coalition that will continue to uphold the spirit of the change and help express why it is so necessary from a high-level perspective. These sponsors are usually at the highest level of the organisation and can allocate resources for the planned change capability deployment project.
You can have a fundamentally brilliant strategy; however, you could fail entirely if you cannot find the right people in middle and first-line management to explain the processes and how it can potentially benefit the team. These people leaders are critical to making sure the change is adopted, coach people on what they can expect, and keep an eye on emerging issues.
One might think that a single person per unit or segment of the business is enough to manage these changes, but employees and leadership come and go, which is why a network of change agents who have all been upskilled is so necessary.
You can have a fundamentally brilliant strategy; however, you could fail entirely if you cannot find the right people in middle and first-line management to explain the processes and how it can potentially benefit the team. These people leaders are critical to making sure the change is adopted, coach people on what they can expect, and keep an eye on emerging issues.
One might think that a single person per unit or segment of the business is enough to manage these changes, but employees and leadership come and go, which is why a network of change agents who have all been upskilled is so necessary.
Having a network of people who can manage change effectively means that there are always opportunities to upskill, to train other colleagues and ready themselves for the next exciting part of your organisation’s evolution.
These change agents will be central to facilitating ongoing assessments of what your business requires to continue to develop – because being able to measure the impact of a chance effectively, and address it, is a sign of flourishing change capability.
Organisational leaders often forget that change isn’t temporary. But rather than a project, managing change is an ongoing journey, and one that is successful requires a change maturity that comes with planning, experience and forward thinking.
and Change offers advisory, consulting, and training services worldwide to help organisations and people manage change through teams and networks in South Africa, Turkey, Russia, the United Kingdom and Italy. They are a Prosci® primary affiliate and facilitate both online and in-person training for certified change management courses.
To learn more about and Change and the training sessions on offer, please visit: www.andchange.com
