The greatest asset a change agent/consultant can bring to your organization is the intuitive ability to know which way the change will flow- like predicting the movement of a wave on the beach.
I have mentioned consistency for high level change many times.
Striving for that consistency is admirable- for the business piece of the change equation. For certain things it may be a relentless process for the people part of your calculations. For people and their human nature are a little like the incoming tide- they go where they will and often follow seemingly invisible paths. Predicting those exact paths, because there are so many forces directing the movement, is impossible. Anticipating (especially with a honed intuitive sense- an important change management competency) the directions people may go is not only possible, it is essential.
In a general sense it is possible to anticipate the pattern of the waves. People tend to follow the same patterns, patterns that a change management consultant would be well aware of and have addressed in the past. Internal politics, possible promotions, potential rewards within the organization, acknowledgment of peers, internal and external credibility, degrees of collaboration and many more, are all areas that will effect the direction a stakeholder takes within an initiative.
On the business side the tendency is to focus on what needs to get done, how to do it and who needs to do it.
Change Management introduces the people side with a focus on interaction, rewards, acknowledgment, measures of success and putting work in context with a bigger picture.
Well honed anticipatory change management understands both focuses and translates them to the stakeholder at or before “the wave comes in”.
Like:
- Always knowing the answers to the 5 W’s (Why, Where, What, Who and When) and slowing down the change if they are not available
- Knowing and structuring the connection between work effort and reward
- Defining and describing the end state and clearly mentoring the ability to translate that to stakeholders
- Understanding the deficiencies in the organization and its culture and weaving compromises into the change process
- Realizing that Human Nature will cause people to do some things consistently
- Realizing that the focus of business will cause people to, well, forget about other people
A finely tuned change management consultant or internal leader will find themselves saying (when they had little control earlier of the outcome), “I knew that was going to happen”. Or in the case where they were brought in a little late (which is often the case when using an external change management consultant), “I could have told you that was going to happen”. The painful version is the, “I told you that was going to happen”.
Addressing the, “it did happen” and discussing the reasons is what builds Anticipatory Change Management for the individual and the organization.