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Emergence of change management From the "why change management" tutorial series
Prosci is releasing a four-part series on "why change management" to
provide several different perspectives on how to make the case for
applying a structured approach to manage the people side of change for
organizational initiatives. This series includes:
* Correlation
data on the impact of effective change management
* Cost-benefit
analysis for change management
* Case study on project impact of
effective change management
* Emergence of change management
This
tutorial looks at the emergence of change management over the last
decade. It presents some history and context of change management as a
discipline and then presents a number of reasons why change management
has really emerged in the last several years.
The evolution of change
management has taken some interesting turns over the last 100 years.
Early works, including those of Arnold Van Gennep (The Rites of Passage,
1907), Kurt Lewin (Resolving Social Conflict & Field Theory in
Social Science, 1947) and William Bridges (Transitions, 1979), looked at
how individuals experienced a change. Each of these authors discussed a
three phase process of change where individuals embark on a journey
moving away from what they know and into an unknown future state.
Although they provide an excellent foundation for how individuals
change, none are focused specifically on change in the workplace. In the
early 1990s, development moved change management out of an examination
of how individuals change and into a business application for managing
organizational change. The works of Daryl Conner (Managing at the Speed
of Change, 1993), Jeanenne LaMarsh (Changing the Way We Change, 1995)
and John Kotter (Leading Change, 1996) laid the groundwork for putting
change management at the center of business and organizational
transformation with new frameworks and models.
Change management
today
In the last five years, change management has emerged as a
requirement of major projects and organizational transformation efforts.
Today, change management has become a recognized business discipline
required for changes to be successful; it has become a requirement on
many of the biggest changes facing organization's today. Change
management can be found in virtually all industries - public and
private. At our certification programs, Prosci has seen participants
from very large to very small organizations. The projects that are
brought to the program range from a strategy deployment across a 60,000
person multi-national organization to process changes impacting a
workgroup of 12. Practitioners come with a wide variety of backgrounds -
from Human Resource professionals and Organization Development
consultants to certified project managers and team members to Industrial
Engineers and Organizational Psychologists. This diverse audience
indicates that across organizations and job functions, successfully
leading change has become a critical component of organizational
success.
In the 2007 and 2009 benchmarking studies, participants
commented on the most prevalent trends they've seen in change
management. The table below shows the top 10 trends in 2009 and the top
seven trends in 2007.
2009 trends in change management
1. A
greater recognition of the need for change management
2. Change
management competency building
3. Dedication of resources for change
management
4. Use of methodology and tools
5. Application on
projects
6. Integration with project management
7. Change
saturation
8. Standard change management approach
9. Establishment
of a change management group
10. Management of the portfolio of
change
2007 trends in change management
1. A greater recognition
of the need for change management
2. More structured and formal
processes
3. Better understanding of what change management really is
4.
Integration with project management
5. Recognition of change
management as a new competency
6. Creation of formal job roles and
titles
7. Earlier application on projects
By a wide margin, the
top trend cited in both studies was a greater recognition of the need
for change management. Change management has moved from a "nice to have"
to a "must have" for major organizational change. Participants also saw
a greater use of formal methodologies and tools - moving from an ad hoc
approach in the past to a structured approach supporting individuals
through organizational change. Finally, over the last several years the
idea that "leading change" is a necessary personal competency for senior
leaders, managers and supervisors throughout the organization has
emerged. All in all, change management in 2009 is more structured and
draws upon a more skilled workforce than ever before.
So, what
prompted the emergence of change management over the last decade?
Reasons
for the emergence of change management
While there are numerous
reasons why change management has emerged over the last decade, this
tutorial highlights four key reasons for the emergence of change
management:
1. New value systems
2. Legacy of past failures
3.
Velocity of change
4. Structure and formalization of change
management
1. New value systems
In his work Stewardship,
Peter Block describes a shift occurring in many organizations. The old
values of predictability, control and consistency have been replaced by
values of empowerment, ownership and accountability. Countless
organizational improvement systems have driven decision making and
authority farther out in the organization. And, while these shifts have
improved the performance of many organizations, they have altered how
change must be managed.
Under the old value system, organizations
incented and rewarded employees for following protocol. When a change
was introduced, values and systems were aligned so employees were more
likely to simply make the change. When asked to jump, employees
responded "how high?" - because that was what they were rewarded for
doing. However, with the empowerment of the workforce, the response has
changed from "how high?" to "why should I jump?" - because that is the
behavior that is reinforced. Employees have been told that they own
their work processes and outputs which has yielded positive results; but
it should not come as a surprise that this ownership sometimes
conflicts with top-down, mandated change. In today's workplace with
higher levels of accountability and ownership at the employee level,
project teams and senior leaders must be much more active in building a
compelling case for change, in engaging employees and in effectively
addressing resistance with the empowered workforce. This new value
system has driven the need for better, more robust and more formal
approaches to managing the people side of change.
Identify your
organizational value systems. How have these new values impacted how
change must be managed?
2. Legacy of past failures
Over the last
several decades, millions and perhaps billions of dollars were spent on
projects that simply did not deliver the intended results. Take for
instance a major technology system deployment in the late 1990s.
Tremendous energy and resources were invested in developing the "right"
solution and technology, but little attention was paid to the impact on
employees' work flow and behaviors. When the technology finally reached
the "go live" point, employees were still left in the dark about why the
change was happening and what it meant to their work. The project team
assumed that since it had the "right" solution, people would simply get
on board. The stark reality was, however, that people resisted the
change and found work arounds, diminishing the value the organization
reaped from the change. This was an all-too-common story as millions of
dollars were invested in new technologies and systems that no one used.
Organizations increasingly recognized that this investment was being
lost - not only failing to deliver the intended benefit but also
representing a significant waste of capital.
Almost every
organization and employee can look back on a failed project that
resulted from ignoring the people side of change. Over the last several
years, savvy leaders began to appreciate that the people side of change
was as important, or more important, than getting the technical side of
change correct. These leaders began looking for more structured
approaches for managing the "soft" side of change. Change management
emerged as a solution to one of the biggest sources of project failure -
not bringing the people along with the change.
Identify a change
from your organization's past that failed because the people side of
change was ignored. What lessons can you learn?
3. Velocity of change
While it may be a cliché, change has become the only true constant.
The world is changing more now than it ever has in the past. Change is
happening faster. Changes are bigger. Change is happening more
frequently. And, for most organizations, the changes that are being
undertaken today are more critical than changes in the past. The
velocity of change is not expected to slow down. Participants in the
2009 benchmarking study commented on the amount of change they expected
in the next two years - over three quarters expected more change in the
next two years, with a full 40% saying they expected the amount of
change to increase significantly.
With so much change going on
around us - in our communities, on the planet and in our workplaces -
there is an even greater pressure to effectively navigate change. Change
management provides frameworks, tips, tools, tangible processes and
suggestions for making changes more successful. The data shows that the
more effectively change management is applied, the more likely an
initiative is to meet its objectives. The velocity of change in most
organizations today has created a significant demand for good change
management.
Do you expect more or less change in the coming years?
Do you have the tools to navigate these changes effectively?
4.
Structure and formalization of change management
While the first
three reasons are all somewhat external to the discipline, the final
reason for the emergence of change management has to do with
developments within the discipline. Change management itself has
changed. Over the course of the last decade, a tremendous amount of
structure and rigor has emerged in what is called "change management."
Readiness assessments have replaced guesswork. Strategies are developed
and customized for people side issues, right along side strategies for
technical issues. The tools used by change management practitioners have
moved out of simple communication and training to a holistic set of
targeted tools aimed at each of the employee-facing roles in the
organization. Reinforcement and measurement systems have been
established to cement the change once the project is declared over.
In
addition, processes have emerged for applying change management. One
comment Prosci often hears from technical folks when they leave a
certification program is: "I was surprised that there was a repeatable
process for the people side of change." As change management has become
more structured, utilizing processes and validated methodologies, it has
become more accepted by the population of project managers who support
organizational initiatives. Change management has moved from
"touchy-feely" concepts to tangible processes and tools.
How has a
structured approach with tangible tools impacted the acceptance and
adoption of change management in your organization?
Takeaways
Research
data from the last two benchmarking studies confirm that the
appreciation of change management and the role it plays in project
success are on the rise. As several participants in the 2009 study
commented: "Growing recognition of importance to successful ROI."
"Appreciate of CM as a necessary component of project success - not just
warm, fuzzy fluff." "Acknowledgement that the investment in change
mgmt on the front end of a project will pay off in the end." Change
management demand is on the rise, and the "change management
professional" is becoming an indispensible resource for major
organizational change. The four reasons for change management's
emergence cited in this tutorial are:
1. Encouraging employees to
take ownership and accountability of their work requires a new approach
to managing change.
2. Previous initiatives that left the people
behind failed to deliver results and cost organizations millions of
dollars - change management has emerged as a solution for realizing
benefits by bringing people along with a solution.
3. With the ever
growing amount of change faced by organizations today, there is an even
greater pressure to be successful. Being successful, given this
tremendous amount of change, requires effective management of the people
side of change.
4. By moving out of concepts and into tangible
processes and tools, change management has earned its place as a
necessary business discipline.