Taslim Ahammad :
Organizational change will be extremely difficult in most of the cases. Changes in processes, systems and technology require that jobs be structured and performed differently. To enable and sustain lasting change, rigorous attention to a formal change management effort is integral to any significant project a company undertakes.
Change management is the discipline and systematic approach to dealing with the transition or transformation of an organization’s goals, processes or technologies. It is the process, tools and techniques to manage the people side of change to achieve the required business outcome. Change management incorporates the organizational tools that can be utilized to help individuals make successful personal transitions resulting in the adoption and realization of change. Change Management is for any organisation engaged in a change initiative where the benefits depend on people changing their behaviour.
Ensuring that there is clear expression of the reasons for change, and helping the sponsor communicate this. Identifying change agents and other people who need to be involved in specific change activities, such as design, testing, and problem solving, and who can then act as ambassadors for change. Assessing all the stakeholders and defining the nature of sponsorship, involvement and communication that will be required. Planning the involvement and project activities of the change sponsor(s). Planning how and when the changes will be communicated, and organizing and/or delivering the communications messages. Assessing the impact of the changes on people and the organization’s structure. Planning activities needed to address the impacts of the change. Ensuring that people involved and affected by the change understand the process change. Making sure those involved or affected have help and support during times of uncertainty and upheaval. Assessing training needs driven by the change, and planning when and how this will be implemented. Identifying and agreeing the success indicators for change, and ensure that they are regularly measured and reported on.
Successfully managed personal, leadership, and organizational change. Highly motivated leaders and employees striving to achieve their full potential. Trusting, accountable teams engaging in constructive conflict to improve performance. Formalized strategic and financial planning that provides a roadmap for success. Aligned organizational and individual goals and metrics. Processes and structures that support business and employee success. In order to manage change successfully, it is, therefore, necessary to attend to the wider impacts of the changes. As well as considering the tangible impacts of change, it’s important to consider the personal impact on those affected, and their journey towards working and behaving in new ways to support the change. The Change Curve is a useful model that describes the personal and organizational process of change in more detail. Change management is, therefore, a very broad field, and approaches to managing change vary widely, from organization to organization and from project to project. Many organizations and consultants subscribe to formal change management methodologies. These provide toolkits, checklists and outline plans of what needs to be done to manage changes successfully.
Impending changes affect every part of an organization and the people within it. A company’s structure is like a spider web: tug on one tiny corner and vibrations are sent throughout the entire web. Every piece, every team, every person of a company affects each other. Determining key influences, cultural resistances and the impact on people including the support required to deliver change we consider your organisational strengths, existing technology and process gaps that will impact on the success of the transformation.
Develop strategies and plans aligned with your organisational goals, provide support for your people throughout the transition and define an overall change management strategy. From there, assess training needs, develop communications plans, conduct readiness assessments and develop a stakeholder engagement strategy and a risk management plan. In this phase, deliver these strategies and plans and work with your employees to adopt the transformational changes. Also continuously review structured metrics that measure employee proficiency with the new processes and workflows.
Advisory areas to organizational change: (i) Leadership – Providing the leadership coaching model and structure necessary for the leadership transformations required to personally and professionally meet the increasing and challenging demands of every organization. (ii) Culture – Introducing a team building model addressing the trust, conflict, accountability, commitment and focus on results necessary for team success. Facilitating the development of a strong company mission, vision, and set of values necessary to provide a basis for transforming organizational conduct and culture. (iii) Planning – Leading a dynamic, organizational strategic planning process that assesses a company’s competitive market forces, the organization’s uniqueness, competitive advantage, value proposition and relative strengths/weaknesses and formalizing key initiatives/goals, metrics and detailed action plans necessary for organizational transformation. In addition, where necessary, corporate restructuring plans are prepared and implemented to guide necessary financial transformation.
Change Management focuses on people, processes and culture. Change management activities are best integrated with the wider project plan. Be sure to involve the project team rather than handle change as a separate stream of work. This ensures alignment of change targets, tactics, messages and behaviours with wider project activities. In management it is critical to rapidly identify the root cause, having an effective change monitoring system in place can rapidly assist in identifying the change that generated the event (it is an authorised or unauthorised change) and is a key component in a management resolution.
Change management has become the new standard. Insights and approaches are established to increase people’s comfort with the new ways of working, outstanding issues are addressed and actively engaged employees share their experiences with others and equip colleagues to adopt the new way of working.
(Taslim Ahammad, Assistant Professor, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University)
