Dealing with change is different for all of us. Whilst some of us may thrive to change, others can find it difficult to accept, leading to a decline in productivity and success. Operating change can be a complex process, and so Change management is essential for any business to ensure a smooth transition.
The change affects people from all levels of an organization, each with their own individual skills, perspectives, and emotions. In this modern economic and social climate, change is no longer optional. It’s up to Change managers to build strategies to help others navigate the change process effectively.
Whilst change cannot happen overnight, there are plenty of ways in which we can produce a smoother transition for our stakeholders.
In this article, we’ll be looking at 7 effective change management tools to help your organization successfully adapt to change. But first, it’s important to understand what change management is.
What is Change Management?
Change management refers to the ways in which we manage approaches to change within an organization. This can be done through the use of tools, knowledge, and resources to make the transition as smooth as possible for your employees.
To help others transition into a change, we need to understand why people are hesitant about change. This can be through fear of failure, letting go of the familiar, or concerns about the unknown, while it’s only natural to have doubts, it can have a damaging impact on both business and individual levels. Fear shouldn’t stifle ambition.
Whilst it’s important to implement change, experience shows that it doesn’t take too long before old habits start to dig in. Therefore, not only do we need to ease change but also to stabilize it.
Every business works differently and there is no one-size-fits-all approach – however, there are many helpful tools and techniques at your disposal to manage change efficiently.
Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model
Developed in 1996, Kotter’s 8-step change model is one of the most well-known methods for large-scale organizational change. These 8 steps are:
1. Create a sense of urgency – We’re all guilty of putting things on hold until it suits us, so the first step is to raise the urgency of the change. Using a SWOT analysis helps to determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats affecting your stakeholders.
2. Build a guiding coalition – The Key to building momentum in organizational change is bringing together those who are already on your side. It’s important to create a mix of employees from different sectors to make sure every stone is covered.
3. Create a compelling vision for change – Creating a clear vision allows you to effectively communicate to your stakeholders why change is necessary. This helps them develop a better understanding of what you expect from them.
4. Enlist a volunteer army – While having your vision shared by one group is a start, the idea is to see that it spreads amongst the wider majority. Having others communicate the importance of your vision can help convince any doubters within your organization.
5. Remove obstacles to enable action – No matter how well things may be going, there will always be obstacles in your way to slow things down. Taking the time to identify current or potential barriers helps to maintain your vision’s momentum.
6. Create short-term wins – No matter how small or big, any win is a confidence booster. Building small steps helps to increase the motivation within your team by setting achievable short-term targets.
7. Build on the Change and sustain acceleration – Naturally, we all run out of steam sooner or later, which can have a negative effect on your team’s motivation towards change. Finding ways to recharge your team’s energy towards change is crucial when the going gets tough.
8. Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture – It’s easy to fall back into old ways – after all, we are creatures of habit, both as individuals and as groups. Therefore, it’s imperative that we stabilize the progress made, transforming the change into a new normal. Whilst old habits may occur, quickly dealing with these issues can help to get things back on track.
Lewin’s 3-stage Change Model
Developed in the 1940s by Kurt Lewin, this model looks at change as a continuous process for organizations. Lewin describes the process of change in 3 stages:
Unfreeze – This is the stage of preparation where the focus is getting ready to accept change. During this stage it needs to be established that things cannot remain as they are, creating a desire for change in order to move into the future.
Change – The stage of transition in which the organization and its stakeholders have to act on transforming to implement change. This is where most people tend to struggle, in which they go through their own process of adapting to change. For this stage, communication, support education, and training are crucial to making sure a change is understood and applied.
Refreeze – The change needs to become the new normal within the organization’s goals, processes, and structure. Once changes are implemented and accepted they become re-frozen in order to stay in place. Using positive reinforcement in the form of rewards and praise are some of the ways to help a change stick within an organization.
Culture mapping
Every organization is different from one another, each with its own set of values, concepts, and approaches. Culture mapping is a tool used to identify these pieces of information to outline their importance to the change initiative.
It is used to identify the subcultures of your organization as well as the positive enablers within these groups. This can be done by interview groups in order to figure out who the enablers and blockers are, which the information can then be organized to create the map.
A culture map is split into 3 sections:
- Outcomes
- Behaviors
- Enablers and blockers
Gender, age, and educational level are just some of the subcultures that can impact people’s reactions to change. Though we shouldn’t make assumptions based on these factors alone, it’s important to be aware of how they can derail the change process.
Personality is a key factor that can impact a person’s attitude towards change. Culture mapping helps you identify these behaviors early on to minimize a greater risk later down the line. We’re all different, but identifying what makes us tick, can make us easier to manage during change.
Stakeholder Analysis
Stakeholder analysis is the method of identifying the stakeholders who could be potentially affected by the change, separating them into groups. The general idea is to learn who your core stakeholders are, their importance to the project and how change could impact their influence.
Your internal and external stakeholders can be placed in categories such as:
- Social
- Technological
- Economic
- Legal
- Political
- Anyone else who is deemed essential to the organization
By organizing your stakeholders, you can plan your strategy of interacting with them and label the priority of engagement. High-priority involvement stakeholders will need close attention and regular communication, whereas low-priority stakeholders could be left to their own devices.
Assess the wants and needs of your stakeholders and how change could impact them. To get the best results, it’s crucial that you cover all aspects of your organization – cast the net far and wide.
5E Model for Successful Change
This model was created by Applied Change in collaboration with the Psychological Sciences Team at UWE, Bristol. The focus is on the 5 key questions we often ask ourselves when dealing with change management. This model combines the latest in behavioral research along with the experience of change in a wide range of organizations and sectors.
1. Energize – How motivated we are to change and what would we be prepared to do in order to achieve this?
2. Enable – What are the obstacles that can slow us down or impact our motivation to change?
3. Execute – How achievable is this change? What strategy do we need to use?
4. Enable – What needs to be done to ensure this change sticks for the long term?
5. Evaluate – What is our progress with the change? Is there anything we need to do to improve on our current outcome?
ADKAR
This model was developed by the founder of Prosci, Jeff Hiatt after a study in the change patterns of over 700 organizations. The ADKAR model focuses on five key areas of individual change:
Spread AWARENESS for the need to change
Create a DESIRE to get involved and support the strategy for change
Develop the KNOWLEDGE of those involved on how they can make the change
Improve the ABILITY of those involved by making changes to their skills and behaviors
Ensure to REINFORCE the changes made, developing new habits to=prevent things from falling back into old ways
Employee surveys
In change, management surveys and questionnaires are a useful way of identifying the views and notification of your stakeholders. They can be distributed amongst a large range of groups and can save time when compared to meetings, interviews, and focus groups.
Surveys can collect a huge amount of information from your stakeholders, without going to great lengths. Collecting general feedback from your team through the use of surveys can help you identify the areas that require improvement and fix them.
The downside is that very few of us jump for joy to fill out a survey, people can often get bored in which you may get inaccurate results. Those who do respond may also be motivated by negative feelings about the change, leading to a biased response.
Some key ways for creating a great employee survey are as such:
- Analyze previous survey data – if possible
- Start the survey with simple questions
- Provide a neutral or ‘does not apply’ response
- Keep the questionnaire relatively short
- Be sure to use words and language your employees will understand
- Structure your survey so that it flows naturally
By engaging your stakeholders and taking their opinions and concerns on board, you are more likely to get people on your side.
Change Readiness Assessment tools
Sometimes it’s difficult to keep a hands-on approach, especially in large businesses. Change readiness assessment tools can do all the hard work for you, conducting surveys and results within a much faster time frame. This means you can capture the views and opinions of your stakeholders with speed and ease.
Change management experts like Applied Change provide you with these tools so you can ensure you are ready for change. They work alongside you to do the following:
- Identify the key stakeholders that are integral to the success of the change, as well as those who could cause resistance.
- Inform your stakeholders about the purpose of the survey.
- Distribute emails to each stakeholder, with a unique link that allows them to access and complete the survey.
- Once the survey is complete, they review the results, creating strategies to help develop the areas that need improvement.
It’s advised that it’s best to use a change readiness assessment prior to the change process or when the change process has become difficult.
In Conclusion
In the business world of today, change is happening constantly. Whilst each change is different, being prepared for change can help to ensure we get the best results. Understanding some of the established models for change is, of course, a great place to start.
Hopefully, you have found this article useful and it’s given you a good overview of some of the key tools and techniques. Wishing you all the very best with your change journey.
