Now, potentially more than ever, an organization must embrace a change to survive and thrive. As consultants, we have seen just how this necessity for a culture of change is either wildly successful or a massive failure within the organization. Whether that means the structure, people, process, or technology, how a firm adapts in a volatile environment could be the very reason for its success or failure.
But, change is scary and hard, and not every firm is ready to successfully navigate change management. We’d like to share a short story of how we as outside consultants can reduce the difficulty of change through the application of the 4 main cyclical phases of our organizational change management methodology.
4 Principles of Effective Change Management
- Plan & Discover: Initiates the project, establishes an understanding of the project culture, people, goals, and objectives, and develops action plans
- Do & Implement: Dives into assessment and analysis, identifies and contextualizes needs, goals, and areas for improvement, and initiates recommended actions for change
- Check & Evaluate: Evaluates project progress, need for adjustment, engagement, and feedback of participants, and determines the effectiveness of the change initiative
- Act & Adjust: Responds to needed adjustments in the project or management plans with responsive planning and recommended action steps
If you are interested in more information about change management models, check this out.
We recently worked with a mid-size manufacturing firm that was undergoing some leadership changes at the executive level. This change included some restructuring, where they shifted to a matrix operating model. This introduced challenges that they lacked the resources to handle on their own, so they called upon TSI to bring in resources to evaluate and improve oversight, reporting, leadership, positional responsibilities, and more.
Plan & Discover
The organization faced the ominous challenge of generating support for change at the executive level and successfully communicating this supported change throughout the organization. The need, not only for the support of leadership but also for successful communication and change management, is to ensure stakeholders throughout the organization are on the same page, striving towards the same goals. TSI provided change management support to level-set understanding surrounding changes, ensure alignment, and facilitate the definition and execution of the communication plan.
We met with the leadership of the firm and constructed a plan to accomplish a series of goals. Establishing goals at the beginning of a change initiative is key to a successful transformation. We interviewed 15 business leaders and identified gaps, pain points, and opportunities within the organization. Using our findings and tools, we worked with the firm to develop a structured process for change.
Do & Implement
One of the key goals we discovered was to define and communicate the firm’s culture and culture of change. This is not something most organizations think of when they engage consultants, but it is one of the most important portions of TSI’s change management methodology. The understanding developed by defining the organization’s’ culture guided the cadence and frequency of meetings, the way we established goals, the way the firm developed its future state vision, and the way changes were implemented.
We ran workshops and training to communicate the changes that were taking place and the role that the organization’s culture played in those changes. The bottom line goal was to empower people within the organization to understand, embrace, and become an active participant in change. People are the most critical factor when it comes to managing and achieving change.
Check & Evaluate
Within the restructure, multiple people held similar leadership positions. Each individual approached the operational changes through their own lens, establishing practices within their teams to accommodate the overall organizational goals. However, what resulted was some misalignment in the interpretation of the changes as well as the implementation of change efforts. Though this was not intentional, the variations in leadership direction and guidance resulted in miscommunication, inconsistency in operations, and misalignment of goals toward the overall change objectives.
TSI approached each individual to gather context and understanding of each leader followed by a series of workshops. These workshops engaged all of the leaders to share their goals, create common goals, and share practices and strategies to support the desired change. TSI then provided training surrounding cultural and organizational change management with strategies and tools to help manage the desired change across the entire organization and each leader’s team. This support helped each leader define the organizational and cultural context to overcome resistance to change and build cooperation for change initiatives.
Act & Adjust
It’s absolutely essential for your organization’s culture to drive the process of implementing change. Identifying culture internally and understanding the implications of it can be unexpectedly challenging. Despite being a guiding force and a participant in the culture, most business leaders find enormous value in an outside perspective helping to define the impacts that culture may have on effectively implementing change.
Providing an outside perspective enables us to present cultural elements in a non-threatening way and communicate change elements in a manner that can be received by people within an organization. The internal politics of an organization often hinders the acceptance of change whereas an unbiased outsider can overcome those challenges more effectively.
Aspects of Change Culture Often Forgotten
This story is just one example of our experiences in establishing a culture of change. From these experiences we’ve learned not only what works, but also the most common mistakes organizations make when navigating a change initiative. Of those mistakes, here is a couple that have a large impact on success:
- Failure to link the goals of change management to the business case for initiating the change. – Often organizations forget why they were engaging in the change in the first place (i.e. grow the organization, increase revenue). Losing sight of the original ‘why’ often creates a disconnected message, a lack of goals, and a failure to focus on the end target, ultimately resulting in a failed effort.
- Failure of the OCM admin to fully understand the business and the business relevance of the change. – Think about it. Your organization is engaged in change that may mean the life and death of your business. Would you want a change management leader in charge of the initiative that doesn’t understand how the business works? No. Much like you wouldn’t want a ship captain that doesn’t understand how to drive the boat. This lack of understanding leads to a lack of credibility, and that lack of credibility will show, causing others in the organization to believe the change efforts also lack credibility.
What’s Next?
Did our story and our experience with the organizational change resonate with you and your current situation? Are you concerned about change, whether you’re in it or thinking of getting into it? Have you tried and failed to execute some positive change of people, process, and/or technology within your organization despite having a change management plan? Check out more about our organization and what we do at www.transforming.com or contact us directly!
