Change Management

Change Management

People dontresist change. They resist being changed! Peter Senge

What is Change Management?It is generally considered to be an organization-wide change process, as opposed to smaller changes such as adding a new person.

It includes the management of changes to the organizational culture, business processes, physical environment, job design / responsibilities, staff skills / knowledge and policies / procedures.

When the change is fundamental and radical, one might call it organizational transformation

Why is Organization-wide Change difficult to accomplish?

Organizations go through four stages on the way to achieving their strategic objective:

DenialResistanceExplorationRenewal

Why People resist to change?Resistance to change can be a defense mechanism caused by frustration and anxiety Individuals may not be resisting the change as much as they are resisting a potential loss of status, pay, comfort, or power that arises from expertiseIn many cases there is not a disagreement with the benefits of the new process, but rather a fear of the unknown future and about their ability to adapt to it.For example fear that one will not be able to develop new skills and behaviors that are required in a new work setting.

Case:California State UniversityCalifornia State University (CSU). Any IT system change that happens at the main campus has to go through every satellite campus, meaning those 23campuses and thousands of employees, staff, and students must adapt their IT systems as well. Dealing with change at a smaller organization can be a nightmare by itself; its worse at a larger organization like CSU.

But, instead of merely throwing their hands up in disgust, the IT department decided to institute an automated change management system. UsingCiscos Pacefunctionality, the company can now make upgrades that will automatically make changes to the entire system. To make their change management strategy even more effective, they are now defining who can use what system and what changes they can make to their designated area. Theirchange management strategy considered the human factorand not only included the automated system, but also defined roles of change so that it would minimize the confusion and issues when a change has to be instituted.

Leading ChangeChanging Systems & StructuresCurrentStateTransitionStateImprovedStateCreating A Shared NeedShaping A VisionMobilizing CommitmentMonitoring ProgressMaking Change Last

How do leaders go about it?ManageAttentionAdopt ChangeRolesDemonstrate PersonalCompetenceMaster ChangeProcessesQ x A = EEFFECTIVENESS(Overall Strategy)ACCEPTANCE(Cultural Strategy)QUALITY PROCESS(Technical Strategy)Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future John F. Kennedy