Did you know that effective change management remains elusive for most organizations? One of the primary obstacles arises when employees have to embrace something different without proper support. Failure becomes inevitable when change processes and tools are absent in the overall project management framework. For a successful organizational change, it is crucial to implement the necessary steps that facilitate employee acceptance.
In this blog, our change management expert, Mark Hordes, explores valuable insights on improving your change management capability.
Join Mark’s webinar and learn how to maximize change management
Creating Change Management Capability: Experience Success
How do you prepare to gain business readiness?
Preparing for business readiness To achieve effective change, it is essential to establish a reasonable level of readiness, preferably surpassing the 50% mark. Consider the following key factors when preparing for business readiness.
Here are some key things to remember as you prepare to gain business readiness for change.
- Resources and funding. Shoot for at least 15% of your budget dedicated to change management.
- Sponsorship. Change management requires visible, highly active, positive, and strong sponsorship. Many people will talk a good show so to speak, but never show up.
- Realistic expectations. What is realistic that you can accomplish relative to your resources, timing, and funding?
- Compelling. The case for change ought to be pretty compelling. If we don’t do this, what’s the downside?
- Project management. Project management and team skills are essential relatives to some training that needs to occur so that people can learn how to collaborate and manage many initiatives under that umbrella.
How do you manage resistance?
Why will people typically resist change? Understanding the reasons behind resistance is crucial for managing change effectively.
Explore familiar sources of resistance and ways to address them.
- Lack of Confidence. People may resist change because they don’t think it’s necessary. They may have never gone through the awareness and understanding cycle to see why it would be necessary.
- Fear. They’re not sure they have the fortitude, skills and understanding, the ability to deal with the change because they
don’t know how to predict the future or to manage it with and through other people. - Surprise. If the changes feel like a surprise, that can lead to some resistance. The interesting thing about surprises is the only time we really like them is when it’s a party. We don’t really like surprises. We don’t like when we can’t understand what’s happening or going to happen.
- Support. Do your employees have the support, the tools, the understanding, the training, and the active things we need to do to be more confident in increasing our results?
- Control. Resistance can come from a feeling of a lack of control: I feel no sense of control over what is occurring here. It’s all being done to me, not with me.
Change management can transform your organization.
Incorporating change management capabilities into your organization can have a significant impact. It’s crucial to prioritize preparedness and effectively tackle any resistance that arises. This involves allocating adequate resources, securing strong sponsorship, setting achievable expectations, and providing compelling reasons for change. By implementing these measures, you can establish a solid foundation for successful transformation. Additionally, it’s crucial to identify and address sources of resistance to empower your employees to embrace change confidently. Adopting these strategies will help your organization navigate change more smoothly and achieve sustainable success.
Recommended Webinar
Unlike most change management webinars focusing on the failure rates of change management efforts, this one is centered on change management action.
Join this webinar and learn how to manage change through key elements effectively.
About the Author
Mark Hordes is the Vice President, Organizational Performance Improvement & Change Management Lead for the Americas with Molten-Group. He is the co-author of S-Business: Reinventing the Services Organization. Mark won the Houston Business Journal’s 2014 Award, “Who’s Who in Energy”. He is an alumnus of the American Graduate School of International Management, “Thunderbird.” He holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Houston and an MBA and MS in Organizational Behavior from Aurora University.
For more information, contact Mark Hordes at Mark Hordes’ LinkedIn ⇗ or visit Sia Partners ⇗.
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