Organizational Change Management

How often have we heard, "organizations don't change, people change."? The reality is that when we are making changes within an organization to the existing technology, systems, or processes, we will impact the people who, in their daily tasks, must interact or integrate these changes into their daily work activities. Therefore, in this context, organizational change management is a structured process and set of tools for leading the people side of change.

Typically the objective is to maximize the collective efforts of all people involved in the change. This means:
(1) Engaging the sponsors or executives to ensure active and visible participation and leadership throughout the course of the project's implementation.

(2) Identifying potential areas of resistance, whether from individuals or groups, and proactively developing customized plans to address this resistance to avoid diverting resources or attention from achieving the business objectives of the change.

(3) Defining and instilling new values, attitudes, norms, and behaviors within an organization that support new ways of doing work.

(4) Coaching middle management and supervisors who must interact daily with the individuals most impacted by the change to ensure this leadership team is personally capable of making the change as well as leading their teams or direct reports through the change.

(5) Training both the leadership team in how to enable change as well as preparing the end users of the change to be proficient in the new technology, systems, or processes at start up.

(6) Ongoing communications to customers and stakeholders to increase the awareness of what is changing and why, and the knowledge to be successful.

Change management must be considered in the context of three levels: