Managing change is most difficult process in any organisation and requires support of external forces and systematic Implementation of steps of change management. Many of improvement initiatives fail because of lack of following steps of change management. Generally people are used to do things in a certain way, once any new method is introduced, there is resistance which is caused by various fears & some times ego. Here are steps of managing change in your organisation:
- Create sense of Urgency: unless a sense of urgency is generated, no one will be serious on change efforts. creating sense of urgency requires identifying gaps between current & desired situation and dealing with initial resistance. Individuals generally resist because of habits, comfort zones, job security fears & ego. Organisational resistance is caused by threat to established power structure, threat to established resource allocation. To overcome resistance Positive of negative impacts of changing and not changing must be identified and communicated to every one
- Create Vision of Change: A positive vision of outcome of change must be created and communicated to every
one. Positive vision covers benefits to individuals and to organisation if new methods were adopted and how it will everyone become and perform better on their roles. Vision of change should be BOLD, Positive and inspiring.
- Develop Support Teams: to lead the change, support team must be created of people who have initially given positive response to Sense of urgency and positive vision of change. Role of support team is to help implement change across the organisation
- Communicate & Train to change paradigms: Regular communication and trainings on changing paradigms with real life examples are key to to sowing seeds of changing the mindset.
- Empower & Involve: Involving team members in process of change is key to get buy in. only once people are involved, they will be able to see positive impact of change. Just telling people to follow without involving will always create a negative environment and will result in more resistance.
- Create Short Team Wins, Reward & Recognise: Efforts of Involved team member must be appreciated and celebrated. More the appreciation of efforts, more will be the increase in adoption of change efforts.