Innerchangecycle

Most change is not going smoothly; change cannot be pushed down, but needs to be pulled through empathetic communication, cross-boundary collaboration and systematic management.

The speed of change is increasing; uncertainty of outcomes or occurrences is inherent in numerous business endeavors or societal movements. All of that makes us humble and become cautious for adaptation. 

Organizational change management today shouldn’t only be a few spontaneous business initiatives for reacting to business dynamics, but logically structured and well-planned efforts to make continuous improvement. People are the center of change, from incremental change to the large scale of business transformation, Human factors spectrum model includes more detail about referential interdependent factors, organizational governance, human interfaces, transitional factors, organization of work processes/procedures etc. Here is a people-centric change management circle including the following interdependent components:

Values/vision: Human society is at an evolutionary journey with varying speed. Groups of people usually have a set of explicit or implicit values that most of them appreciate, to shape their attitude, and guide their behaviors. The social core values concern some basic behaviors like respect, integrity, credibility, clarity, and collaboration, etc. All these are interlinked and interdependent and must be evident from the top and throughout the organization. To co-solve problems and overcome common challenges, different groups, organizations, or societies should hold a common set of values for setting people’s mindset, guiding people’s actions and leading progressive changes collaboratively.

In order to run a successful business or modern society, the strategic core values concern behaviors needed to support the strategy and that integrate business models, motivate changes, improve collective performance. The core is the core; it takes the time to change the core values of an organization. It’s important to align all critical business success factors such as vision, mission, means and methods, develop the best and next practices to help direct the way people think, the way people behave, and the way people act.

Attitude/intention: Attitude constitutes the belief of the person, and reflects the value they hold on. To drive progressive changes, people’s attitude matters, as it directly impacts on how they respond to change, as well as how they take initiatives to create change momentum. Intension is people’s inner driver to do certain things and make achievement. Our intention to change is to make a better future; making self-assessment and evaluating the past can certainly lead us to a good insight towards the future, let us see the attitude of taking things in a positive way and choose the actions enthusiastically.

With strong intention and positive attitude, we sense ourselves and that's all we need to let our thoughts and behavior work to keep us motivated, taking a moderate risk with realistic optimism to drive changes we would like to see. Negative intentions or misjudgments need to be discouraged or even penalized in order to build a healthy working environment in which improvement is encouraged and change agents are empowered. The right people have a strong intention to get things better, with a positive attitude to fix the right problems. They are passionate about their work and demonstrate professionalism and maturity.

Actual behavior /habits: People are the cause and effect of change in many circumstances. Behavior is a manifestation of attitude, attitude results from the mindset. Either individually or collectively, we all work in progress, learning, growing, and changing for the better. To make change happen and sustain change impact, it’s logical to shape the fitting mindset with new perspectives, norms, and attitudes, let go of the voices from the past, reprogram the mindset with new perspectives, develop the proactive attitude, craft and deliver change results through consistent communication and coherent actions.

The overall idea is to build a "business change logic" or "behavioral value chain" between the inputs - intermediate steps - outcomes. The management needs to handle sequence & consequence in a rational way, instill passion, boost the energy and excitement to achieve the ultimate business results. Depending on the nature and complexity of change effort, behavior can be changed either through updated processes/tools or through adaptive shifts in thoughts or beliefs that result from looking inward and reflecting. For the radical change, change behaviors only fix the symptom via manual control, but change mindset can be more innate to make change happen naturally and cultivate the new habit to sustain change impacts.

Positive and negative consequences directing number: Change management has considerably low success rate. Psychologically, positive and negative change effects depend on one's perception of a situation. In simple words, when one accepts a situation of change; it helps to think positively regarding the next step as to what to do to improve the situation. For certain incremental changes, leaders and professionals act in sequence, observe the consequences of their action, make inferences about those consequences, draw implications for future efforts,

To keep the teams and employees focused on the most important things, handle sequence & consequence of change initiatives, more often nonlinearly, to deliver tangible results. Change performance is difficult to assess because the things you try to measure continue to change. Measuring change involves first accurately identifying where you are now. Then, clearly identifying where you want to be once the change is complete. You must also have yardsticks along the way at regular intervals to accurately measure progress. Whatever the measurement system is, it needs to be consistent, repeatable, and as unbiased as possible. Change outcomes are much more simple to measure; what is much more difficult to get to grips with is the change that a growing number of people over time need to go through to create the environment for change outcomes to materialize.

In reality, change is tough; there is a mix of old and new, physical and virtual, order and chaos, solid and flow; tangible and intangible in change management. True, most change is not going smoothly; change cannot be pushed down, but needs to be pulled through empathetic communication, cross-boundary collaboration and systematic management. Identify, understand and potentially take account of various contextual factors or environmental factors in case there is more to the story as well. You can certainly change behaviors with the right push, however, leapfrog changes come with inspiring the mind and great attitudes. As change is never for its own sake, but to clarify the very purpose to change, identify the right spot to change for amplifying its effects.

Posted in: Change Management