Change management
Change management is an approach to shifting/transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. It is an organizational process aimed at helping change stakeholders to accept and embrace changes in their business environment.[citation needed] In some project management context, change management refers to a project management process where changes to a project are formally introduced and approved.[1]
Kotter [2] defines change management as the utilization of basic structures and tools to control any organizational change effort. Change management's goal is to minimize the change impacts on workers and avoid distractions.
History
Linda Ackerman Anderson,[3] co-author of Beyond Change Management, described how in the late 1980s and early 1990s top leaders were growing dissatisfied with the failures of creating and implementing changes in a top-down fashion. They created the role of the change leader to take responsibility for the people side of the change. February 1994 is the unofficial beginning of the Change Management Industry, with the publication of the first "State of the Change Management Industry" report in the Consultants News.[4]
McKinsey consultant Julien Phillips first published a change management model in 1982 in the journal Human Resource Management, though it took a decade for his change management peers to catch up with him.[5]
Marshak[6] credits the big 6 accounting firms and management consulting firms with creating the change management industry when they branded their reengineering services groups as change management services in the late 1980s.
Examples of organizational change
- Mission changes,
- Strategic changes,
- Operational changes (including Structural changes),
- Technological changes,
- Changing the attitudes and behaviors of personnel,[citation needed]
As a multidisciplinary practice that has evolved as a result of scholarly research, Organizational Change Management should begin with a systematic diagnosis of the current situation in order to determine both the need for change and the capability to change. The objectives, content, and process of change should all be specified as part of a Change Management plan.
Change Management processes may include creative marketing to enable communication between change audiences, but also deep social understanding about leadership’s styles and group dynamics. As a visible track on transformation projects, Organizational Change Management aligns groups’ expectations, communicates, integrates teams and manages people training. It makes use of performance metrics, such as financial results, operational efficiency, leadership commitment, communication effectiveness, and the perceived need for change to design appropriate strategies, in order to avoid change failures or solve troubled change projects.
Successful change management is more likely to occur if the following are included:[citation needed]
- Benefits management and realization to define measurable stakeholder aims, create a business case for their achievement (which should be continuously updated), and monitor assumptions, risks, dependencies, costs, return on investment, dis-benefits and cultural issues affecting the progress of the associated work.
- Effective Communications that informs various stakeholders of the reasons for the change (why?), the benefits of successful implementation (what is in it for us, and you) as well as the details of the change (when? where? who is involved? how much will it cost? etc.).
- Devise an effective education, training and/or skills upgrading scheme for the organization.
- Counter resistance from the employees of companies and align them to overall strategic direction of the organization.
- Provide personal counseling (if required) to alleviate any change-related fears.
- Monitoring of the implementation and fine-tuning as required.
See also
Need to add links to and/or descriptions of related organizational change topics, including communication planning, stakeholder analysis, training, and change curve. CIPD can offer facts sheets.
References
- ^ Filicetti, John (August 20, 2007). "Project Management Dictionary". PM Hut. Retrieved 16 November 2009.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Kotter, J. (2011). Change Management vs. Change Leadership -- What's the Difference? Forbes online. Retrieved 12/21/11 from http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkotter/2011/07/12/change-management-vs-change-leadership-whats-the-difference/
- ^ Anderson, D. & Anderson, L.A. (2001). Beyond Change Management: Advanced Strategies for Today’s Transformational Leaders. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer. Retrieved 12/21/11 from http://books.google.com/books?id=WbpH7p5qQ88C&printsec=frontcover&dq=beyond+change+management&hl=en&sa=X&ei=kEfzTpewMYKpiQLGz5S8Dg&ved=0CD0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=beyond%20change%20management&f=false
- ^ Whelehan, S. (1995). Capturing a Moving Target: Change Management. Consultants News: Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/wikipediaCM/cm-consultantnews
- ^ Phillips, J. R. (1983). Enhancing the Effectiveness of Organizational Change Management. Human Resource Management, 22(1/2), 183-199. Retrieved 12/21/11 from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hrm.3930220125/abstract
- ^ Marshak, R.J. (2005). Contemporary challenges to the philosophy and practice of organizational development. In David L. Bradford and W. Warner Burke (Eds.) Reinventing organizational development: New approaches to change in organizations. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.