What is change management? A guide to organizational transformation

Executives often assume that everyone impacted will find the business case so compelling they’ll automatically accept the new way of operating. But most people resist change or are unpredictable. This creates several difficulties for the OCM team:

Change management is not deterministic. Unlike computer programs, people can be unpredictable and illogical. OCM activities effective with one group may be ineffective with another. Messages may resonate with some people but not with others. Change management is a contact sport. The OCM team needs to interact one on one with individuals who will need to change. Emails, videos, and other mass communication can reinforce a message, but these don’t make people feel the enterprise cares about their difficulties. Change is personal; sometimes people whose jobs have been transformed need someone else to listen to their frustrations before they accept the new reality.

Midlevel and frontline staff must be engaged. Midlevel and frontline staff can make or break a major program. Since they understand the operational details of the current processes, they can anticipate potential problems and likely customer reactions. Individuals not sensitive to the disruption that major change can create often believe it’s more efficient to involve fewer people early in the process. While involving more people in the change process creates additional work for the OCM team, it also builds commitment. Midlevel and frontline staff who see their suggestions accepted are more likely to support the final result.

Cultural differences can make OCM difficult. Cultural norms are different around the globe. The OCM effort needs to be aware of local customs even with a global system intended to standardize enterprise operations. Care needs to be taken to be sensitive to these and other cultural norms since violating them can cause great resentment. The best OCM teams are very sensitive to local cultural norms even when the people at headquarters demand a standard project rollout and standard OCM program globally.

Change management may be an afterthought. With major IT efforts, the project team is often consumed by business process changes, interfaces to other systems, data cleanup, and so on. If the OCM effort isn’t started concurrently with the rest of the program, it may only be started when the program team experiences resistance from end users. Even enterprises that assert that OCM is critical sometimes reduce or eliminate the OCM budget if the overall program gets too expensive.

Change management can be started too early. The OCM effort needs to be tightly coupled to the rest of the change program. This is particularly difficult with major IT programs when the OCM efforts begin before new system details have been finalized. In the absence of tangible information about the new system, the OCM team either sounds vague or describes what they hope the new system will do. When the new system fails to materialize quickly or has less functionality than anticipated, supporters often become disillusioned.

OCM and the change program may be disconnected. The rational and emotional cases for change need to be integrated tightly. Frequently, executives communicate a rational, logical case for change that lacks emotional appeal. People respond to calls to action that make them feel they’re part of something that’s more important than any single person, and are energized by visions that capture their hearts as well as their minds.

How should a change management team be structured?

The OCM team should be integrated with the team responsible for implementing the change. The OCM sponsor should be a senior executive, often the CEO. The sponsor is the cheerleader who describes why the change is important and how it’ll help the enterprise. This person acquires necessary resources, establishes OCM goals along with consequences for failure to support the change.

The OCM sponsor is supported by an OCM project manager who directs the day-to-day activities of the OCM team. The OCM project manager works closely with the overall program manager responsible for implementing the change. Together the OCM project manager and the overall program manager coordinate training, communications, and supporter recognition.

OCM staff, known as OCM champions, are supporters of the change who ‘sell’ the benefits to specific departments, business units, and individuals. They start working with their target group shortly after the program team begins planning. As part of change training, these champions explain how the change will help the individuals affected.

After implementation, champions continue to make sure the change is supported and used by the individuals whose jobs have changed. They continue to espouse the benefits of the change and pay particular attention to anyone having difficulty with the change. Sometimes they merely listen and in other cases, they obtain additional training or offer help for the struggling individual.

The best champions are well respected even though they may not be very high in the organization chart. They wield informal power as opinion leaders, performing their duties competently and with grace. Many have been with the enterprise for a long time. Frequently, they serve as informal coaches to new employees who may be more senior in the hierarchy. They motivate others, inspiring them to do a good job. Other employees seek them out to determine if the people leading a major initiative will be persistent enough to make the change stick.

Change targets are the groups and individuals who need to change their behaviors and their attitudes. They are the recipients of training necessary to implement the change. As they become supporters of the change, they’re usually recognized for their support.

5 main principles of change management

Organization change management programs typically have fewer tasks and greater complexity than the program they support. The OCM program has to adapt and change on the fly to accommodate the vagaries of human nature as supporters backslide and skeptics become supporters.

While there are different approaches to OCM, most can be summarized by five main principles:

Plan. The OCM team identifies all departments, business units and groups that will need to change along with key stakeholders in each. In parallel, the OCM team analyzes how the various parts of the change will impact the way people perform their jobs. This analysis enables the OCM team to answer the most common question posed during a major change: “What’s in it for me?”

As it becomes more obvious which stakeholders support the change, which are undecided, and which don’t support the change, the OCM team creates a change plan with specific actions for each individual and group. Individual OCM members are assigned to work with individual stakeholders based in part on the strength of the relationship between the OCM team member and the specific stakeholder.

During this phase, the OCM team begins to assess the degree to which stakeholders accept the change. At this point, acceptance measures are informal and based on impressions from meeting behavior, one-on-one discussions and other interactions.

Engage stakeholders. As part of engagement, the OCM team discusses the coming change with potential supporters to determine their willingness to support the change and to create a sense of urgency to implement the change. The OCM team also identifies likely skeptics and attempts to determine their concerns. In many cases, the team will commission a formal change readiness assessment to gain a more precise understanding of the enterprise’s willingness to change.

Rollout and communication. During implementation, the OCM team communicates with individuals at all levels in the enterprise to gain their support for the change. Communications typically begin with a formal announcement from the CEO, supported by videos, emails, workstation log-on announcements, and town hall meetings,. The OCM team hopes to empower supporters and help individuals or groups become successful quickly. The OCM group identifies and celebrates successes publicly and rewards individuals responsible for each success.

As the rollout continues, attitudinal surveys are frequently employed to better gauge employee acceptance and commitment to the change. Special interventions are created and used for individuals and groups that appear reluctant to accept the change.

Training and reinforcement. Because people rarely behave as others would like them to behave, the OCM team regularly revisits and updates change goals, rewards, communications and consequences. Experience is the best teacher. Repeated interactions with individual stakeholders usually reveal their degree of acceptance, enabling the OCM team to adjust its approach as necessary. Additional support and training can be offered to employees to ensure everyone is on the same page and prepared to adopt the new changes.

Measuring success. Tasks, projects and behaviors that support the change should be part of individual performance plans. Items in the performance plan need to be clear, measurable and achievable. In addition, these items need to be weighted appropriately against the other goals in the performance plan. It’s important to establish clear metrics to track the success of the overall changes, and to identify any adjustments that need to be made.

Change management is rarely straightforward. The OCM plan may be depicted as a Gantt chart using the same tools as the IT project plan. However, in practice, OCM activities rarely have clear tasks, precedents and durations. Most OCM teams cycle through the five steps above multiple times during any OCM effort. Lessons learned at any point are incorporated into the OCM vision and communications. OCM work is not complete until the change is fully implemented and adopted by the people affected.

Who offers organizational change management certification?

A wide variety of universities and associations offer change management certificates and certifications. These include:

For more information on additional change management cert opportunities, see “11 change management certifications to boost your IT career.”