Change Management
As name suggests, change management is an art and science of managing yourself and influence others to change for good.
Most of us are managing change on a daily basis, we all know to certain extent how to cope up with change and adopt early. However how effectively we are able to deal with change varies considerably, that is where the process of change managements starts
In this change management section of our blog we cover all the change management related subject in considerably detailed manner. This will help you manage not only your personal and professional life , it will also help you to influence change management people around you. This knowledge will help you manage change successfully and support others as we are all dealing with constant change
Though we all know how to deal with personal change, when we are dealing with organization change, business and people dynamics of change management becomes a very complex . We will deal all aspect of organizational and behavioral change in the organization and how to deal with change under following sections
- Understanding Change Management
- Creating and communicating Vision
- Implementing Change
- Managing Resistance to Change
- Convince Your Employees to Embrace Change
- Personal Change Management
- Facilitation Skills
- Career Management Skills
What is Change Management?
Change is always experienced than explained, any growing organization will have to deal with change due to various reasons .Organization will have to keep an eye of the environment and keep aligning to business and cultural need of the time.
Most of the major changes in organization comes with some kind of temporary uncertainty to its employees and at time threatens the existence. Normally these come because of the business environment or external force like merger of two entities or takeover of one business by another major competitor. Some time It also tends to be linked to ‘efficiency’, which usually leads to downsizing, with the implied threat of redundancy.
None of these situations are positive in nature to settled people , so perhaps it is natural to find resistance to change and cynicism.But that does not need to be that way always!. There are people who naturally embrace change and motivates others to follow.
There is no doubt in my mind that uncertainty is one of the most stressful conditions to mankind and that needs to handled through proper structured approach.
Change can be managed; there are ways to manage personal and organizational changes for better.
People approach change in different ways: some appears to enjoy and the are more kind of agile and tolerant and they know how to deal with it. Most of the time they found a way to deal with it or at time ignore the change if they cannot do much about it. Some take it in very sportive adventures way. However degree of acceptance of change over time and the persons age also matters. Normally young people adopt to change and embrace it as they have noting much to loose. However aged people find it difficult as the stake is more in their case.
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Model of Change Management
The Change Management Foundation is shaped like a pyramid with project management managing technical aspects and people implementing change at the base and leadership setting the direction at the top. The Change Management Model consists of four stages:
- Determine Need for Change : One has to clearly understand and define the need for change and its pro and cons before getting into change management process. Need can arise out of many things like technology change or business environment and customer demand
- Prepare & Plan for Change : Like any other project management this too needs a good planning and preparation. Unless it is not planned well there is high chance creating more damage than good.
- Implement the Change : No matter how good your plan is if it is not implemented there will not be any impact. Implementing change itself is a new whole process that demands high level of maturity and dealing with human emotions skillfully.
- Sustain the Change : Once change is forced upon using various change management skills sustaining change is the biggest challenge, continuous focus and effort has to be put in place to sustain change
Change Management History
Change is constant and no matter whether people like it or not, as the popular say goes “Change is the only constant thing in life “.
Finding the history of changes is just a matter of collecting some evidence to the changes recorded over period of time. However as change is a constant phenomena of life it is very difficult to find an era of change though people.
Great a academicians and professors have been talking about change and its effective management for many years now.
Somewhere around 1996 the person name John Kotter Harvard Business School Professior and Change expert came out with book “Leading Change” Where he advocated change model with 8 steps after researching for large number of organization change process
How to Implement Change
Managing change is always a difficult process and takes a lot of pain then expected , the whole process is very human and demands maturity among the leaders who implement change and greater people skills.
Good change managers needs to be people persons and should be able to engage employees with empathy, and excellent communication ability. They need to have a good emotional intelligence (EQ) along with IQ to motivate people to take embrace change in right spirit.
Handling change is a bit complicated process and style of leadership need to be exhibited is different depending on the type of change you are trying to bring in the organization. Mix of all kind of Leadership Style is deployed by leaders based on the situation it demands. Learn more about these leadership styles like Authoritative, Democratic, Affiliate etc are detailed in our types of leadership style and how to acquire them.
It is always recommended to follow a proven methods like Dr. Jhon P Kotter 8 steps of change management (shown in the video below ) to make your implementation successful
8 step process of Change Management
by Dr. Jhon P Kotter This model is based on the belief that to drive change one has to create sense of urgency and define vision for the organization and drive people towards that goal. Create small goal posts and quick wins. Once you are able to achieve the target institutionalize the change and make that a habit.
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Establish a Sense of Urgency ,
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Create the Guiding Coalition,
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Develop a Vision and Strategy,
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Communicate the Change Vision,
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Empower Employees for Broad-Based Action,
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Generate Short-Term Wins,
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Consolidate Gains and Produce More Change,
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Anchor New Approaches in the Culture,
Here is good you tube animated video on 8 principle of management explains all the above points with a very practical example take look at
Experiencing Change Management
One more aspect of managing change is how people accept and adapt it into their personal life, we have more on this Personal Change Management Skills needed to handle change in other page
In general those who adopt change quickly are the one who has a ability think at macro level and foresee and opportunity to grow in a new setup. Strategic thinking skills are the key for thinking ahead of others and freezing new opportunity and fitment at the earliest. More on the Strategic thinking see our detailed article.
People with greater Emotional Intelligence tend to adopt change well early, and particularly with strong self motivation skills drive them to adopt new opportunities available on the corner.
Some people find very hard to accept the change and resist a lot, there has been a great amount of research is gone in to manage the resistance from such people and we have covered Resistance to change in greater length in here
Author’s take on Change Management
For any organization setup Change management is a challenging and risky job. If that is not handled properly, cost of change management can crop up in different aspect of organizational behaviors and finally it will affect the outcome. There is a high chance it affects the moral of the people and can impact negatively on the DNA of the organization.
No one wants change other then wet baby! Every one avoids and settles for ordinary being. Change is not welcome anywhere but it has to happens no matter who resist. Change is the law of nature “. The only way to handle is to Embrace the change for good else it will embrace you. Smart people adopts change early and find new opportunity at the earliest, others resists crib and gossip about change they will be shown doors at the earliest.
List of top change management courses
