The Effective Change Manager's Handbook: Essential Guidance to the Change Management Body of Knowledge

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PowerHow concentrated or diffuse is power in the organization? How much local or individual empowerment do people experience? What power lies with different stakeholder groups? (Chapter 4) Communicate prodigiously. Even if you’ve already done so, do it again. It is difficult to communicate too much! They also found that the success rate of change projects using a dedicated change manager rose by 19 per cent compared to those that did not.

The advice offered by Bridges to managers and leaders on how to help people through this process of ‘letting go of the old ways and the old identity people had’ would include: PriceWaterhouseCoopers published a study ( PwC, 2004 ) on project and programme management practices. They conclude, amongst other things: ‘The survey reveals an undeniable correlation between project performance, maturity level and change management. The majority of the best performing and most mature organisations always or frequently apply change management to their projects.’ This highlights the need for alignment of change and project management practices and for ensuring appropriate organizational structure. The change curve is a function of time. Some apparent ‘resistance’ simply reflects a difference between the position of those announcing a change and those receiving it. Those announcing the change have had a greater involvement in the process to this point, so their personal change curve is shallower and shorter. They have also had more time to process the impact of change on themselves, so are typically further through the curve. At the point of announcement those receiving the change are right at the start of their curve. Judging their early reactions too harshly as ‘inappropriate resistance’ simply fails to recognize the natural process of human change. Change and the organizational contextBalogun and Hope Hailey (2008) describe what they call the ‘design choices’ to be considered in planning a change: SOurCE: From The Empty Raincoat by Charles Handy, published by Hutchinson. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited.The way that change and project management practices are aligned and managed, making them appropriate to the size and structure of the organization. A journey can be a lonely time. Encourage those in the neutral zone to connect more intentionally with other people and other teams (other travellers or those now securely arrived at their destination). Even planned social events that bring people together outside their routine work can help people to remain ‘grounded’. Consider including the friends or family who are their key personal support systems. A specifi c behaviour that is rewarded tends to be repeated more frequently, but when the pattern of rewarding the behaviour is withdrawn, frequency tends to reduce. The Effective Change Manager's Handbook is designed to help practitioners, employers and academics define and practise change management successfully and develop change management maturity within their organization. A single-volume learning resource covering the range of knowledge required, it includes chapters from established thought leaders on topics ranging from benefits management, stakeholder strategy, facilitation, change readiness, project management and education and learning support. Endorsed by the Change Management Institute and the official guide to the CMI Body of Knowledge, The Effective Change Manager's Handbook covers the whole process from planning to implementation, offering practical tools, techniques and models to effectively support any change initiative.

The impact and influence of each of the contextual factors on the various design choices can be considered and documented. Informed and intentional decisions about the design choices form a strong foundation for any planned change. The length and depth of the personal change curve can be anything from a brief and minor ‘wobble’ (fluctuation) to a major ‘roller-coaster’ lasting for months. Some factors that tend to affect this length and depth – and the probability of emerging successfully on the upside – include: CapabilityDo individuals have the range of skills required, both for the change process and for the demands they will face after the change? How good is the organization at managing change? Does it have access to suitably skilled people? (Chapters 7 and 9)

Summary

Change is a necessity for survival. This was brought home to me many years ago as I read Charles Handy’s book The Empty Raincoat: Making sense of the future ( Handy, 1994 ). He describes a pattern, the ‘sigmoid curve’ (shaped somewhat like a Greek letter ‘s’: see Figure 1.1 ). It is a classic life cycle that traces the stumbling start, the rise and success, and the eventual decay of empires, organizations, products, processes and even an individual person or career. Handy points out that the timescale is becoming ever more compressed. ‘New’ products, processes, organizations and initiatives rise and decay at an ever-faster rate. Clearly this way of thinking is associated strongly with the physiological and safety needs. This ‘behaviourist’ approach to reward schedules tended to lead to a simplistic view of how to get people to behave in a particular way: reward it and/or punish the alternatives. Although a 21st-century Western culture rebels at the thought, much of our thinking about motivation is still infl uenced by such models – consider the prevalence of ‘performance-related pay’. However, it remains true that human motivation, while it includes responses to reward and punishment, is much more complex than this model suggests. The interaction between one change and another in the life of an individual. Someone who possesses a stable and strong network of friends and family may cope with redundancy better than another person who is currently undergoing a messy family breakup. Again, if supervisors and line managers know their people well, they can help to asses such impacts. Maslow refers to the next level of his hierarchy as ‘love needs’ (sometimes called ‘social needs’). By this he means the craving for love, affection, social interaction and ‘belongingness’. how much I value a particular outcome (this ‘valency’ could of course be negative as well as positive!);

Identify the reasons why the current situation cannot continue. There will be gains amongst the losses. The chapter introduces a selection of infl uential models and perspectives on change. These are drawn from the wide and still-growing body of research and thought about change since the mid-20th century. All of us involved in change management have our favourite approaches and models – and it is inevitable that those I have selected and referred to will miss some of the favourites of each reader. My hope is that the way I have described and presented this selection will encourage readers to explore further, using the references to build their own change manage-ment perspective. Balogun, J and Hope Hailey, V (2008 ) Exploring Strategic Change IBM (2008b ) Making Change Work Prosci (2012 ) Best Practices in Change Management – or a more recent It is easy for leaders and managers in organizations to assume that change is straight-forward. We are educated and trained to approach problems logically and rationally. We see an opportunity to make an improvement – large or small – and can formulate plans to make that improvement.A number of the studies demonstrated that consistent application of an appropriate methodology was a further factor consistently associated with greater success. This is a time for empathy, and for helping people to consider realistically the impact that the changes will have on them individually. Don’t try to minimize the losses that people will experience – they need to know that the cost of the change to them personally has been well understood.

DiversityHow homogeneous is the organization? Is diversity amongst people an obstacle to achieving alignment? Is inadequate diversity an obstacle to creativity and change? (Section E and Chapter 12) The way that stakeholders are identified and strongly connected to the change through a variety of communication practices. Punishment associated with a specifi c behaviour tends to reduce the frequency of that behaviour, but less strongly than rewarding an alternative behaviour. Although some challenge the research applying this model to organizational situations, it remains a helpful way of looking at change. It is easily communicated and helps to explain many characteristic patterns of response observed in change processes. Figure 1.3 shows how personal performance, energy and, characteristi-cally, mood vary through the normal process of human change.

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Achievement ● Recognition ● The work itself (job content) ● Responsibility ● Advancement (promotion) ● Growth (personal/professional development) change initiatives Laclair, JA and Rao, RP (2002 ) Helping employees embrace change Kotter, JP (1995 ) Leading change: why transformation efforts fail Moorhouse Consulting (2013 ) Barometer on Change 2013 Autonomy : people like to be self-directed, with a high degree of freedom to decide the direction, methods and circumstances of their work.