How to Manage Change Processes

Managing change requires planning and open communication.

Change management processes are the tools needed to manage the people side of change within an organization. These processes can help reduce the resistance to change. Change in any organization - if handled improperly - can create fear, frustration and anger, among other feelings.
Change is needed to improve organizational processes that in the long run will make a company more profitable and manageable while developing better products and improved ways to serve customers.
Effective and acceptable change processes involve three phases: preparation, management and reinforcement.

Instructions

Preparation - Defining the Need for Change

1. Define the need for change in great detail and include why, when and how the change will take place. Include well-defined goals and objectives for change.

2. Prepare a change management strategy that includes the reasons for the change, how the change will take place, who will be implementing it and how feedback and communications will be managed.

3. Develop and prepare a change management team. No one person can implement change alone. Change management has to be a team effort.

4. Use readiness assessments as a tool. Assessments can help determine a company's need for change, scope of change and employees' willingness to accept change, and can help determine the strength of the change management team.

5. Make agreements and arrangements for active and visible participation form senior business leaders within the organization.

6. Define a timeline for implementation, feedback and reassessing or redesigning the change; as well as long-term monitoring, such as a six-, nine- or 12-month evaluation after the change has been implemented.

7. Develop change management plans that include communications, coaching, training and plans for addressing resistance to change.

Managing - Implementing Change

1. Implement the change management plans. Stick to the timeline developed in the preparation stage.

2. Involve all of the management team in the change process. All company leaders, from the CEO to the floor supervisors, need to take an active role in implementing change effectively.

3. Provide coaching for employees as the change occurs.

4. Provide ongoing training and professional development of employees as the change progresses.

5. Sponsor ongoing activities to keep employees informed of progress. Indentify, understand and address resistance to change as it occurs.

Reinforcement - Feedback

1. Continually collect data and feedback about the progress of the change, and continually analyze the change data and feedback.

2. Find any gaps and resistance, and manage those situations immediately.

3. Redesign the process or the changes as needed from the findings of the data and feedback.

4. Implement redesign processes as soon as possible. Start at the top of the list when having to redesign or make drastic modifications to the changes.

5. Continue to monitor the effects of change on the company and on employees according to the long-term timeline determined in phase one.

Tips & Warnings

• Many books are available detailing tips and techniques for implementing change. Two such books are Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson and Kenneth Blanchard, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1998, 2002; and Change Management by Jeffrey Hiatt and Timothy Creasey , Prosci Research, 2002.

References

• Change Management Online Tutorial
• Change Management Institute