What is Organizational Change Management?

Organizational change management is the process used to help people, in an organization, to let go of their current activities and behaviours and adopt different behaviours, activities and interactions to enable a new work environment.

Change management helps people to adapt and adopt changes within your organization with the least amount of discomfort and disruption possible. Change management practices focus on building true commitment to the change initiative by fully engaging the individuals involved.

Before talking more about change management it’s helpful to understand the two distinct but related dimensions of organizational change:

1. The Change Event

The first dimension of change is the event. For example, a change event may be the implementation of a new software system, the merger of two departments or the acquisition of a new line of business. The change event represents the decision to make or implement a change.

As the Event change is:

  • Concrete
  • Visible
  • Defined by a distinct beginning and end

2. The Transition through the Whitespace

The second dimension of change is the transition.  The transition is the personal journey every person will need to make to realize the benefits and intended results of your change event. I find it helpful to think of the transition dimension as the Whitespace. That’s because it is the space between where your employees are when a change event is announced and where you need them to be in order for you to achieve the desired results of the change event.

As the Transition or Whitespace change is:

  • Intangible
  • Personal
  • Context sensitive
  • Undefined by a clear beginning and end

This dimension is often overlooked and/or misunderstood by leaders. Yet, it can account for almost 80% of your success with change.

Organizations don’t change. People do.

New processes, forward-thinking strategies, and cutting edge hardware and systems may be changes critical to your organization’s success. However, these alone won’t carry your business over the finish line. To achieve a return on your change investment you  need people – your people – to bring them to life and make them work for your business.

Facilitating the transition through the whitespace of change requires different approaches and a different perspective than managing the change event. Just as the elements of the whitespace are intangible, so are many of the activities of change management. Organizational change management is less about managing the change event and more about enabling people to navigate, as comfortably and confidently as possible, their journey through the whitespace.

To enable and lead within the whitespace of change, you need to understand:

  • How people naturally respond to change, and
  • How to work with that natural response to help your employees make the transition.

The value of change management

Using and integrating change management practices will help you help your employees. It starts with helping them see themselves working comfortably, confidently, and competently in the intended new work environment – doing new tasks, using new skills, or even sitting in a new seat. Once they can see themselves being successful in this new environment, change management practices will help you create the conditions that promote and encourage them to move through the change process. Finally, integrating change management practices into your leadership practice will help reduce the stress and anxiety your employees experience with change.

Change management helps you focus on facilitating your team’s transition which in turn, helps your organization realize the value of the change much sooner. You can also reduce the disruption to your operation and prevent resistance to change. And the value of change management increases over time. Each time you enable healthy organizational change you increase both your organization’s and your team’s capacity for change. And that’s good for your business in the long term!

If you would like to learn more about how to increase your change management knowledge and skills in your organization, Turner Change Management can help. Contact us.

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The “Law” of Organizational Change

Judges GavelBy Dr. Dawn-Marie Turner, MEd, CMC

Last month our national news was focused on the backlash the Conservative government was getting over their decision to scrap the mandatory long form census. Now, my interest was not whether the decision to scrap the mandatory long form was the right business decision or not. What was more significant to me was the immense and immediate backlash or “resistance” to the decision.

Watching this and reflecting on other very public change initiatives that have experienced a similar fate reminded me of the consequences when the #1 “Law of Change” is broken.

Putting the statistics fiasco aside, think about your own organization. How many times has your organization analyzed a situation, identified a solution or opportunity, and launched the change initiative only to encounter a tremendous backlash?

The sad part is that much of the backlash you experience could be prevented if you remember the one undisputed reality about change. People will only move toward a change when they have internalized the need for the change. This reality is so critical it should be called “The Law of Change”.  Without an internalized need for change, nothing can begin.

This may sound like common sense, and it is. Think about any change and the first question you asked was probably “WHY”. Yet almost daily, whether it is in the headlines or with individual leaders, I see evidence of this law being ignored or its importance minimized.  John Kotter, a leading change researcher and author of the book Leading Change, found that over 50 per cent of companies fail when it comes to creating and communicating the need for change.  When the people involved don’t internalize the need for change, the failure of your change is almost guaranteed.

People need time to internalize the need for change

Now you may think; “but I told them why the change was needed when we announced the change”. Unfortunately, simply telling them as you push forward a solution will not work. The people affected must internalize the need for change. Internalization is the process people use to connect both intellectually and emotionally with the change. The internalization of the need for change is so important for one reason — motivation.  As John Kotter said, “without motivation people won’t help and the change will go nowhere”.

Here are three things you can do to help your people internalize the need for your change

  1. Start talking about the need for change sooner.  Too often leaders wait to start talking about the change until they have defined the solution. Then they fall into the trap of selling the solution instead creating awareness about the problem or opportunity. Before people will buy a solution they need to believe there is a problem.
  2. Create the opportunity for interactive conversation about the change. Conversation is the means people use to connect personally and emotionally with the need for change. Unless people make this connection they will not move forward with change.
  3. Be patient. Internalization takes time.  If you don’t think you have time, think about how you will find the time to manage the backlash and resistance.

The Fallacy of Resistance to Change

Dawn-Marie Turner, PhD

Imagine organizational change where the majority of people are moving your organization toward the intended outcome. An organization where individuals use change as a means for success and where resistance to change does not exist. Sound impossible? It’s not when you realize that people don’t fundamentally resist change.

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