Uncover Logic and Consequence of Change Management

Organizational change management today is not just about a few spontaneous businesses initiatives for reacting to business dynamics, but structured and well-planned efforts to make continuous improvement. 

Digital means hyper-connectivity, uncertainty, and ambiguity. Change is inevitable, closer to reality is that change is continuously happening in such a dynamic environment of a company. Change Management is about managing everything that is necessary to get people to adopt new ways of working and make sure the work environment inspires positive changes, and improves the strategic responsiveness of the business. 

In practice, Change Management has stubbornly a very high percentage of failure rate. What are the logical steps for managing change processes and sustaining change outcomes?

Thinking of logic and consequences of change management: The organization stagnates usually because the business systems including people, process, or technology are no longer able to accommodate changing needs or are too fragile to speed up. Change Management requires some kind of stimulation-rethinking and reinventing the business and creating that changed sense of support for adapting to emerging events. There are strategic changes and tactical changes, change is usually difficult. Forward-thinking digital businesses today should encourage critical thinking and independent thinking, appreciate thinkers of consequence, not thinkers of convenience. The managers should assess to what extent the organization has the capacity to change in terms of people, finances, and manageability, and also forecast future needs by asking: What is the organizational capacity for change? What should you do to build or increase the business capacity to meet the growing demand? Who are your change agents? How deep is the change curve? Is the organization a pioneer, mature adapter, or laggard? etc. It is important to broaden the lens and increase perspective, look at another belief from a little less emotional perspective, and provide the guiding light and direction to make progressive change.

Unfortunately, many organizations keep the status quo, reward mediocrity and compliance, it makes people very uncomfortable to think independently or change proactively. So they think of convenience, get stuck in their comfort zone. Too often assumptions and prejudices get in the way of true understanding, with overwhelming growth of information and shortened knowledge cycle, people get stuck in outdated perception even if the circumstances change a long time ago. To think critically and change progressively perhaps more often than not, involves some level of discomfort and interdisciplinary transcendence, continue to see the importance of dealing with blind spots, think of consequences not convenience.

Persuasion is related to the form of reasoning by pointing out that doing so will have a consequence that also should be aimed for: The goal for change is always to make improvement or innovations happening. Change Management is a hybrid of both science and art as the science gets interpreted to suit the varying situations and the art of getting things done creatively. if you aren't willing to persuade, train or retool, the change will fail. Often, many organizations focus so heavily on the "doing" - the “how,” they lose sight of the "purpose," the "WHY" part of changes. Creating a compelling reason for the change is something that companies often miss and a change program is then initiated without an anchor. Change without good reason is futile and useless.

Many times, change is difficult because it involves both the learning curve and the emotional cycle behind it. You can’t just control the people's behaviors manually because you can’t manipulate how they think. There are many idioms that refute the premise: "some things never change," "the more things change, the more they stay the same," "there's nothing new under the Sun," etc. The focus of Change Management should include communication made to fine tune corporate culture and actions designed to sustain performance improvement and anchor change as a new opportunity. The management should understand that you can make all changes you like, but unless people change their mindset, attitude, and behavior, the change will not be embedded and will not be sustained at the organizational scope.

The purpose of assessing risk against consequence criteria is to determine what risk must be managed, and how to manage it effectively: With the exponential growth of information and high velocity of changes, in business, every day is a risk and the risk curve will always be greater than a business as usual approaches. Paradoxically, every opportunity has risks embedded in it; and every risk perhaps brings opportunities as well. To manage change effectively, the management needs to assess their business risk appetite and tolerance, and the risk management mechanism needs to be well embedded in processes or corporate culture and put in place a mandated risk tolerance structure via escalation requirements based on current risk ratings.

Change Management and Strategy Management often go hand in hand; with any strategic change initiative, there can be a high risk of failure. The change execution plan needs to include change measurement and risk management as well. The mentality shifts from 'risk-avoidance' to 'risk management' and risk intelligence to make your needs known, and manage risk smoothly. If you're not getting the support you need, it's a risk. It is also critical to manage risk in change management more practically and less emotionally, and lessons learned from previous failure or others will increase the effectiveness of your next change agenda and therefore probably increase your chances of meeting your objectives on your next attempt.

Organizational change management today is not just about a few spontaneous businesses initiatives for reacting to business dynamics, but structured and well-planned efforts to make continuous improvement. By understanding the logic and consequences of change and taking the systematic approach, the digital transformation can take the pace steadily in an organization in which change does not disrupt and interfere with the business as usual; but become an ongoing business capability to evolve, adapt and innovate business for accelerating business performance and improving the organizational maturity.

Posted in: Change Management