Navigate Changes through “5W + 1 H” Change Management Framework

Change Management requires a clear vision, a logical framework for navigating and making effective communication, for driving progress in a structural way.

Change is a volatile subject, just like change itself. Everything changes continuously by following the laws of evolution, and the rate of change is accelerated. A changeable organization is to creating organizations where change is the norm and happens all the time, thereby delivering faster and increasing market share. The successful businesses are the ones that have learned WHEN change is called for and how to decide WHAT to change. Change cannot be just another thing that needs to be accomplished. It has to be woven into communication, process, and action of the organization, to navigate through the “5W+1H” Change Management framework.

WHY do you need to CHANGE? Many organizations focus so heavily on the "doing" (the "how" part of change), they lose sight of the "purpose," the "WHY" part of changes. It is the key to present the WHY first. Primarily, it provides a way to inject enthusiasm, which is infectious and spurs the concept forward. Once people agree with the “WHY” part of the reasoning, they can develop their own level or means of participating, maybe even offering what you didn't think to ask for, expanding the efficiency of the concept itself, thereby re-injecting further excitement in their being part of it. Because change cannot be completely manipulated from top-down, it starts from the mindset. "Why" should not only precede "How," but should be reaffirmed at each step in the "How." Every process, every expenditure of time, money, energy, and every assignment of resources should directly relate back to the "Why."

WHAT are the driving forces leading changes: Corporate change can be a simple modification of strategy, a business process improvement or a more radical digital transformation. The strong support for continuous improvement is an essential strategy. Transformation is, "the company reinvented itself." It is a change to the fundamental business model itself, it is a radical change. The top of the pile is strategy-driven transformation, identify key driving factors for business transformation. Generally speaking, the key driving factors of any business transformation are:
(1) Automation and standardization practices.
(2) Organizational culture reinvention.
(3) The transformation of data into relevant and timely information; or transform the computer systems and technical programs that are being used to take advantage of the latest digital trend; and then business transformation needs to be carried out within the company's system and apply design principle accordingly.

Who are the Change leaders/ Agents/Networks: Doing things differently is just part of everyday life for a change leader who is always in the midst of change -envisioning it, planning it, or leading it. Change leaders concern the driving forces, visions, and processes that fuel large-scale transformation, practice digital leadership skills such as delegation, decision-making, and monitoring. Change is complex and multi-faceted these days, it is more than change leaders or change agent alone that are essential for transformation. There are perhaps a number of people usually internal to the business appointed by an organization to work with an external/internal Change Manager and act as the "voice of the business," and be the conduit into the company to help with communication, process, and organizational changes. A change agent network is a group of people integrated with the execution of the plan and who own the required transformation so that the change/transformation can be orchestrated through cross-functional collaboration and iterative communication.

When to change: The people that make up the organization must see a compelling need to change from risky practices, obsolete ideas, processes and do so proactively before issues materialize. It also helps when people believe things will improve by changing, innovating, and upgrading, etc. The change leaders and managers need to ask themselves: Is there a burning platform or a burning ambition (or both) that compels your business to become much faster, better and mature at delivering change? The good moment to change is when the top senses the urgency and the bottom feel the pain, and change inertia is minimized by the common understanding of the necessity and imperatives of changes. Change Management is a journey, not just a one-time project, it means the big WHEN about change is not just a particular moment, but a thought-out planning with the clear defined timelines, to identify crisis point, decision point, tipping point, and inflection point of changes. The right TIMING can improve the success rate of change management.

Where to change: Change the game is the mindset. Change behaviors often only fix the symptom through manual control, but change mindset can be more innate to make business/digital transformation happen naturally. Change needs to be embedded into the mechanism of multiple management disciplines. Process optimization and organizational structure tuning are the right places to experiment changes for the sake of the organizational maturity. Productivity increase comes from effective processes or technology tuning. Organizational structure tuning will also become more practical because digital technologies provide the new way to do things, alternative channels to communicate, and better ways to get the work done by enforcing cross-functional communication and collaboration.

How to change: Change Management always fails when management thinks that they get all the answers, and they come up with a plan in a vacuum and try to sell it. First of all, Change Management is all about balancing the main elements impacting change: People ( most important one), Strategies, Processes/ Procedures and IT. It’s important to have the team own a process by bringing them in early and getting their involvement in creating the big “how” process. You have to maintain and fix any imbalance in those elements by establishing a committee to involving the management in HR, IT and operations. Secondly, you want to emphasize the Human Resources role in the Change Management because people are always considered the center for the organizational movement. In order to execute a successful Change Management process, there is a need to delegate roles and responsibilities of the process, and have a strong honest communication plan in place.

Statistically, about 70% of change initiatives fail, rather, they fail to meet stakeholders’ expectations. There is no panacea, no magic bullet with regards to change. Change Management requires a clear vision, a logical framework for navigating and making effective communication, developing the logical processes to manage change systematically.

Posted in: Change Management,Digital Frameworks