Managing long-term, complex, and large-scale change has a reputation for not delivering the expected benefits. The main reason for this is that leaders generally fail to think about how they will handle change in a way that is commensurate with their intentions.
And we have a real example: A CFO sat down with his leadership team, Realizing that the Board’s decision to create a global organization of specialized corporate functions would not sit well with them, They’ve gone through two restructurings in the last four years – with mixed success. These changes required endless governance reports to headquarters, In addition to toolkits and applications that local businesses weary of change have only partially found relevant, He decided he couldn’t ask his team to make that kind of change again. How can he handle this change in a different, sustainable, and less effortful way?
When we ask leaders what they think about when deciding how to make any major organizational change, they often struggle to answer, Often , They are more interested in what the change is — such as a new organizational strategy, operating model, or acquisition integration — rather than how — the particular way they will handle such changes. Such disregard for how comes with the great risk of using old routines to get into new places.
Any “default” approach to change can lead to a lot of busy action, But not the real transformation of the system.
Steps of the change management process
Organizations must systematically prepare for and implement major organizational change. John Kotter developed, Professor at Harvard Business School, A widely recognized and adopted approach to organizational change management. This approach , Updated in the book Cotter Acceleration, It includes the following eight stages: 3
- Create a sense of urgency. Successful transformation efforts typically begin when leaders scan the market for changes that may lead to new competitive realities for the organization. These changes can stem from demographic shifts, or social trends, or new technology, market or competitor changes, or new government regulations. Leaders must make it clear that a potential crisis or major opportunity is imminent, They must encourage frank discussion throughout the organization. Creating a sense of urgency that the status quo is no longer acceptable is essential to gaining active workforce collaboration.
- “Building a Mentoring Alliance”. Once employees feel urgency, Leaders must create a group that is strong enough to lead change. Members need significant authority based on position, experience, credibility and leadership, As well as effective management skills and proven leadership capabilities. This alliance must learn to work together on the basis of trust and set a common goal. Many mentor alliances build trust through external meetings, joint activities, and conversations.
- Create a vision and strategic initiatives. The guiding alliance must articulate a clear vision for the future, And motivate people to take appropriate actions and coordinate their actions. An effective vision is one that is imaginable, desirable, feasible, focused, flexible, and communicative. According to Cotter. Creating an effective vision takes time and can be a difficult process, But the final product provides a clear direction for the future.
- “Recruit a volunteer army.” Once the steering coalition has developed the vision, Its members must provide extensive communication about how change will improve the business and how those improvements will benefit employees. Key elements in effective communications include simplicity, and use examples, multiple forums, repetition, Explain apparent contradictions and two-way communication. The group should model the behavior expected of employees.
- Empowering action by removing barriers. To enable workers to support change and act according to the vision, Change leaders must identify obstacles and remove them. Four categories of important obstacles are:
- Formal structures that make it difficult for employees to act.
- Lack of required skills.
- personnel or information systems.
- Supervisors who do not encourage action towards implementing the new vision.
- Achieve short-term gains.” Successful and lasting change takes time, which can be frustrating for employees at all levels of the organization. To maintain urgency, leaders must create conditions that support early successes and visible improvements. The key is to actively seek opportunities to score early achievements and to recognize and reward those Who made these achievements possible.Good short-term gains have unequivocal results, are visible to many people and are clearly associated with efforts to change.
- Acceleration Sustain. Until major changes are embedded in the organization’s culture (which can take up to a decade), They remain subject to resistance and retreat. It is important to use early successes as a basis for larger challenges and to review all systems, structures and policies that do not fit the vision for change. HR can enhance earnings by hiring, promoting and developing employees who can implement the vision of transformation. in addition to , The change process can be reinvigorated with new project subjects and change agents.
- Change Foundation. The final stage in Kotter’s model of successful change is to relate the changes to two key components of the company’s culture – the group’s norms of behavior and shared values.
Another model of organizational change that includes a four-stage change management process:
- Orientation change: through Align expectations regarding scope of change as well as timing and business impact , where A series of steps and recipes which are tightly controlled are determined by the top management, which alone decides the direction of change (what) and the way to get there (how) there is close control over what needs to be done, and drives change through structured programmes, purchase required, There is minimal capacity building, Communication is in a half-duplex “uplink” mode.
The dominant mindset of a leader is “I can manage change.”
- Self-assembly change: Communicate with leaders and helpers to implement change, While the top management has a clear definition of the direction of change, implementation (including adaptation) is largely delegated to local administration, In this approach, You see a proliferation of tools, templates, and workshops to launch change, And while these activities are closely tracked, There may be some minimal capacity building led by tool/initiative providers (eg, Central Program Management Office.
The prevailing mindset of a leader is “enough is enough and there will be something left to tackle later”.
- masterful change Communicate with leaders and collaborators to implement change where change is led by senior management and is held in a consistent manner across the organisation, Leaders spend significant time and energy on high-quality engagement and dialogue with multiple stakeholders to improve it. Within this clearly defined framework, Top management gives people the freedom to execute as they see fit and supports them by building significant change capacity, Formal and coordinated networks are created to spread learning.
The dominant mindset of a leader is, “I trust my team to work things out with me.”
- sustainable change Work with leaders and employees to track adoption and drive lasting change. Leaders have guiding intent and loose direction, But within this expansive framework , Only a few ” hard rules ” govern the behavior of those involved in change. Instead of having a solid and big plan, Leaders focus their work on a few hot spots and leave room for experimentation and learning from quick feedback loops. Change moves step by step. Leaders remain alert and responsive to dynamic changes in the environment.
The dominant mindset of a leader is, “I can only create the conditions for change.”