Anyone reading the newspaper or watching the news today hears and sees the word “change” used a lot. Today’s employers are affected by change as much as anyone.
In my first Insight, “Change Management Secrets for Success,” I described how successful businesses must anticipate and prepare for change.
While some people seem ready for change, we also see that some employees are resistant to change for a variety of reasons. In a work setting, they might feel uncomfortable or anxious when confronted by the unknown and they start to push back against change efforts. Their resistance can certainly affect organizations, especially those that need to be nimble, responsive and flexible.
In my experience, I’ve seen organizations go down a change path, and they are met with unexpected speed bumps or resistance along the way. In fact, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), research reports estimate that change efforts fail at a 70 percent rate. This is a time for senior leadership to say, “OK, we all need to be accountable for our behaviors, which means organizational members are also accountable for the change efforts. This accountability expectation means that everyone agrees to or understands their roles in leading the change effort in order to make it succeed.”
Real Life Example
Here is a real life example that you may find helpful and encouraging. I am working with an organization planning to implement an executive development program, which means making massive changes to the previous ways of doing things. In the beginning, they found that people in the organization tended to be resistant to participating in this change effort.
One of our initiatives has been to help develop their leaders to effectively lead this change effort. This organization plans to double its size during the next three to five years, so we began evaluating the types of skill sets they will need. We worked through the list of considerations previously outlined and described in my first HRTools Insight. For example, we put together and established a clearly defined project plan that includes deadlines and milestones, all of which help to inspire and establish a commitment to the proposed changes.
For many of them, this commitment will end up lasting 18 to 24 months, and they are in the middle of the process right now. In order to minimize and manage the organizational culture-related challenges, we have set forth carefully defined goals and objectives. This framework gives us practical steps to follow, which help us measure success.
As I mentioned, we are halfway through the management change efforts, and everyone in the organization is accepting them extremely well. I am pleased to say that we have 100 percent dedication to the program. As further evidence of success, we are seeing no signs of resistance such as people opting out, not completing their work or not being present.
We are learning lessons along the way, which also means we have to be willing to go back and re-evaluate our plan, making tweaks as necessary. Most importantly, employee confidence in leadership is beginning to show, along with other positive signs of their commitment to the change management efforts.
Successful and Competitive Organizations Prepare for Change
In order to stay competitive, many organizations must be prepared to overcome the barriers for making changes. This preparation includes involving stakeholders at all levels of an organization. Moreover, successful change management is becoming increasingly important as organizations compete in an increasingly growing global economy.