Change
Management
Change management entails thoughtful planning and sensitive
implementation, and above all, consultation with, and involvement of, the
people affected by the changes. If you force change on people normally problems
arise. Change must be realistic, achievable and measurable. These aspects are especially
relevant to managing personal change. Before starting organizational change,
ask yourself: What do we want to achieve with this change, why, and how will we
know that the change has been achieved? Who is affected by this change, and how
will they react to it? How much of this change can we achieve ourselves, and
what parts of the change do we need help with? These aspects also relate
strongly to the management of personal as well as organizational change.
Responsibility
for managing change
The employee does not have a responsibility to manage change - the
employee's responsibility is no other than to do their best, which is different
for every person and depends on a wide variety of factors (health, maturity,
stability, experience, personality, motivation, etc). Responsibility for
managing change is with management and executives of the organisation - they
must manage the change in a way that employees can cope with it. The manager
has a responsibility to facilitate and enable change, and all
that is implied within that statement, especially to understand the situation
from an objective standpoint (to 'step back', and be non-judgemental), and then
to help people understand reasons, aims, and ways of responding positively
according to employees' own situations and capabilities. Increasingly the
manager's role is to interpret, communicate and enable - not to instruct and
impose, which nobody really responds to well.
Change
must involve the people - change must not be imposed upon the people
You cannot impose change - people and teams need to be empowered to
find their own solutions and responses, with facilitation and support from
managers, and tolerance and compassion from the leaders and executives.
Management and leadership style and behaviour are more important than clever
process and policy. Employees need to be able to trust the organization.
The leader must agree and work with these ideas, or change is
likely to be very painful, and the best people will be lost in the process.
Change management principles
1.
At all times involve
and agree support from people within system (system = environment, processes,
culture, relationships, behaviours, etc., whether personal or organisational).
2.
Understand where
you/the organisation is at the moment.
3.
Understand where you
want to be, when, why, and what the measures will be for having got there.
4.
Plan development
towards above No.3 in appropriate achievable measurable stages.
5.
Communicate,
involve, enable and facilitate involvement from people, as early and openly and
as fully as is possible.
1.
Increase urgency - inspire people to
move, make objectives real and relevant.
2.
Build the guiding
team - get the right people in place with the right emotional
commitment, and the right mix of skills and levels.
3.
Get the vision right - get the team to
establish a simple vision and strategy, focus on emotional and creative aspects
necessary to drive service and efficiency.
4.
Communicate for
buy-in - Involve as many people as possible, communicate the essentials,
simply, and to appeal and respond to people's needs. De-clutter communications
- make technology work for you rather than against.
5.
Empower action - Remove obstacles,
enable constructive feedback and lots of support from leaders - reward and
recognise progress and achievements.
6.
Create short-term
wins - Set aims that are easy to achieve - in bite-size chunks.
Manageable numbers of initiatives. Finish current stages before starting new
ones.
7.
Don't let up - Foster and
encourage determination and persistence - ongoing change - encourage ongoing
progress reporting - highlight achieved and future milestones.
8.
Make change stick - Reinforce the
value of successful change via recruitment, promotion, new change leaders.
Weave change into culture.
Excerpts from Business ball
Mhd Malki
