Assumptions, the status quo, the influence of previous authors/gurus can tarnish the change process. There is often a lot of wasted effort, energy, time and money spent on acknowledgment/honoring before proceeding. Organic change methods owned by individuals based on “best practices” also fall into this category.
I found myself thinking today-
What if I had not read all those books up to during and after my Masters acquisition? What if CM was brought in just before any of these things took hold in the organization? What if as a practitioner I could just be truly naive and do what makes sense? What would that look like?
Mind cleared, childhood naivety (with adult reasoning) switched on, adult fear and justifications turned off… Let’s try this. My kids loved numbered lists, now is my chance.
- There has to be an end state description. Why will have to be answered, so anything that is necessary to do that, will fall under number one (I am guessing these will look like phases, but let’s let it play out).
- Because time, place, context along with relationship to others and their work is important, an initial message that includes the results of #1 will need to go out. That message will have an explanation of how the words, pictures, timelines and interaction of the change group will facilitate participation and understanding. It will also illustrate avenues for feedback loops.
- The meat of the implementation will have leadership guidance, ongoing connection to stakeholders, mentoring of project managers and any needed skills training.
- Adoption of whatever the change is which could include any and all of- technology, behavior, business process, structure, culture and more- is a transition process. So that when the official day of Adoption- let’s say the no turning back spot- comes, most will feel it has already happened.
- The initiative will feed into the next end state description.
Stripped of flavor of the day and marketing fluff (I even left out any mention of horizontal connections, maybe my own version) my 5 steps are a process of making sense of the change, agreeing on the relationship of work to effort and how that will be communicated, getting everyone up to speed on change as well as this change, letting the new blend with then replace the old and worrying more about how well this feeds the next change then the sticking power of the current one.
You can see that I am still basing my steps on assumptions- change happens all the time and people are becoming used to it, you really can make sense of business and people connected, a methodical interactive and collaborative process works (no urgency, no resistance fighting and so no condescending approach) and that CM will begin at the beginning go to the end and be around for the next beginning. One last assumption- that the practitioners will be quick in reacting, adjusting and, in the end, have read all those books and seen the results of putting stock in any one thing.
Because change management has changed. Where it has not, it needs to.