In what must be my 100th version of an elevator speech (isn’t it nice when you have more than 30 seconds to actually talk?) given at a recent LinkedIn event I realized I keep throwing out the term, “People side of Change”. As in, ‘”what do you do?”, the people side of change…blah blah blah
I wonder, what is the other side?
Technology? Business? Process? Structure?
A quick Google search http://tinyurl.com/yh8jf65 reveals the term applied to a book http://tinyurl.com/yzvbolt(nice for marketing), job descriptions (and is for a project manager- isn’t that one of the other sides?) and an approach to building competency within an organization (a new spin on the how to keep and use your employees). Continuing on my path in the last few days of addressing languaging I would say the term is good since it helps to differentiate, filter and create awareness depending on how it is used.
But scroll down in your search and you will find The Human Side of Change.
Now the languaging gets interesting. Someone took people so we need a synonym. Or maybe Human carries more weight than simply people? Or maybe both terms signify behavioral change in general?
I realize in thinking this through and looking to see how others have used the term that I don’t like the languaging anymore. Because I do both sides (whatever the other side might be called). Effective change management- the kind that describes and gets to the end state with some extra business objectives accomplished along the way- has to do with both sides. I suppose you could have a person for each but budgets are usually not that big. Who would be the first one to go?
Unfortunately, the person doing, “the people side of change”.