There has been a noticeable change in the business environment over the years, and interestingly, it still keeps on evolving. Organisations depend on and interact with their external environment for survival and growth. This is why changes in an organisation can occur due to internal and external pressures on the company.
Internal factors that may affect organisational change include forces like political environment, market conditions, and social changes. On the other hand, external factors affecting organisational change include operational methods, organisational structures, management, and strategies. Considering the complexity, it has become essential to understand how to manage change in an organisation.
Also Read : What is the Process of Change Management?
Understanding Change Management
While a change to some degree is essential and unavoidable in any organisation, if not managed well, it can have a severe impact on the company’s performance. However, what is change management?
It is a systematic approach of using a set of tools to define and implement procedures to deal with the changes occurring in the organisation. Successfully managing organisational changes has a direct and positive effect on the productivity of the company’s employees.
Change management is the people’s side of change that helps individuals adapt and achieve the required outcomes in the organisation. It is, therefore, important for leaders to effectively manage change in today’s people-centred companies.
Leadership programs in India help professionals learn about the importance of change management in organisations. These courses can also help people build leadership competencies for managing real-life problems. And with that, let’s understand the 7 Rs of change management.
Also Read : What is the Goal of Change Management?
The 7 Rs of Change Management
The 7 Rs of change management is a checklist of questions that must be addressed to manage organisational changes effectively. These seven questions include:-
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Who RAISED the Change Request?
As mentioned before, changes can arise due to both internal and external factors in an organisation. Therefore, before implementing a change management strategy, the foremost thing to understand is whether the change is internal or external to the company. Even if the difference is internal, it is crucial to recognise the department that raised the proposed change.
The person or department who suggested the change may have valuable insights and evidence that can help implement the change and motivate employees to adopt the same. However, it can become difficult to track the person who requested change with different departments operating independently.
To that end, here’s a pro-tip: Design a centralised system that records all the changes and helps the management know which change request was raised by which department.
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What is the REASON for the Change?
The management of the company needs to understand the reasons for the change request. Changes in employee profile, decrease in profitability, or minimising a security risk can be the reasons for a change request. However, proper evidence should be provided regarding the proposed change to help management decide the course of action.
Understanding the reasons for a change allows management to evaluate the pros and cons. How will that help? By preventing changes with a higher degree of risk and minimum benefit to the business. Moreover, it helps align changes with the strategies & objectives of the industry to avoid spending the company’s resources on ineffective and non-strategic change.
- Several leadership programs for experienced professionals in India help leaders understand the difference between effective and ineffective changes in an organisation.
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What RETURN is Expected from the Change?
It is crucial to understand the return from a change before implementing it. Why? To find whether the change will bring a positive or a negative result to the business. For instance, will the security leakage get fixed, or the profitability of the operations increase after implementing the changes?
If the returns to the proposed change are high, it can be used as a compelling reason to implement the change and also motivate the employees. On the other hand, if the return is expected to be low, the request for that specific change can be refused. This is why any business must analyse the returns scheduled before implementing the change.
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What are the Risks Involved in Implementing the Change?
Every change involves risks. While some risks can be avoided, there are other risks that need to be accepted. The exact amount of risks involved in a change cannot be estimated. However, an estimate can be made about the potential risks that may be encountered in the process of adopting change.
Here’s what you can do: Consider the worst possible scenarios if things go south and consider a strategy to tackle them before implementing the change. Apart from these risks, make sure to consider the risk of not implementing the change at all. This can help you analyse whether the change will give you the bang for its buck or not.
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What are the Resources Required for Delivering Change?
Both infrastructure and human resources are needed to implement a change. From the human perspective, you need to determine the skills required for the change and whether those skills are already available in your company.
On the other hand, from the asset analysis point of view, you need to determine what infrastructural assets will be required to implement the change and whether they are currently available with the organisation.
There are schematic things that must be addressed prior to deploying resources to the change is its impact on other projects of the business. If the people and assets of other projects are relocated to address this change, how will it impact the time and cost of the ongoing projects? It is after considering these factors that management can decide the resources required to deliver the change.
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Who are RESPONSIBLE for Creating, Testing and Implementing the Change?
The people managing the change development should be able to assign responsibilities of creating, testing, and implementing the said changes. The duties should be such that they are traceable and easily enforced across the complete change deployment process.
Failing to appoint roles and responsibilities before the implementation of change can result in more extended periods of planning, testing, and scheduling the necessary change.
Therefore, assigning clear responsibilities about who will do what is essential in terms of change management. The XLRI senior leadership program can help you understand the importance of creating practical responsibilities for change management strategy in an organisation.
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What is the Connection Between the Suggested Change and Other Changes?
With so many changes occurring simultaneously in the business environment, it has become complex to answer this question. However, failing to determine these changes in relationships can result in more extended implementation periods. How? Due to inefficiency in creating a change sequence.
Changes in an organisation must be planned and organised correctly. This helps in understanding the relationships between various changes. If a change request requires implementing another change, this relationship can help you plan your change sequence accordingly.
Determining the predecessor and successor relationships ensures providing the maximum benefits of these change implementations to your business.
Also Read : The History & Future Scope of Leadership & Change Management
Role of Leaders in Change Management
Change provides a chance for the company to improve its operations and efficiencies. This is why, in recent years, the field of change management has gained a lot of prominence in an organisation.
Be it an individual, group, or organisational level, it is the responsibility of a leader to manage and motivate people to implement the necessary change and achieve business goals.
Leaders being the change agents of an organisation, are required to accept the changes first. Only then can they motivate and inspire the employees to embrace the change.
A clear vision and a set of required skills can help leaders to manage change effectively. How can you acquire this skill set? The executive development program from XLRI is the answer. This online certification course can help you become an expert on strategic change management and leadership.
As a leader, your greatest challenge in change management is the employee’s resistance to change. Let’s understand what resistance to change is and how to overcome this challenge.
Also Read : Developing Leaders to Guide your Organization Through Change
Understanding Resistance to Change
Significant changes occur in the organisation due to variations in the business environment. However, human nature remains pretty much the same.
Employees show repeated resistance to changes in the existing modes and methods of completing tasks. This resistance towards change can act as a significant hindrance in achieving organisational goals. Two types of sources trigger resistance to change, which are:-
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Rational Resistance
This resistance corresponds to the lack of knowledge or information about the change. How can you decrease the occurrence of rational resistance? The answer is simple – By providing the employees relevant information regarding the change.
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Emotional Resistance
This resistance relates to psychological problems like insecurity, fear, and suspicion. What can be done to tackle emotional resistance? Convince employees about the positive outcomes the change will have professionally and personally.
Also Read : Strategies for Effectively Leading Organisational Change
Reasons for Resistance to Change
The common reasons for resistance to change in all organisations include:-
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Fear of Job Security or the Loss of Status
People often resist changes that they view as harmful/inconvenient to their current situation. This is why, in an organisation, employees and managers resist technological and administrative changes that can eliminate or reduce their roles in the company.
This resistance can have several unfavourable consequences for the organisation.
Suppose the change is perceived as a threat to the employees. In that case, it can result in defensive behaviour such as increased absenteeism & errors, sudden hostility, and loss of motivation, loyalty, and productivity.
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Insecurity and Uncertainty
One of the significant reasons for resistance to change is the uncertainty about the effects of the change. Individuals like being in situations that make them feel secure. The fear of the unknown always makes them want to postpone those situations.
Being unfamiliar with the new technology and procedures can create uncertainty among individuals, resulting in a resistance to change. Technological up-gradation makes them feel insecure about their jobs, thinking that machines can replace them.
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Lack of a Properly Aligned Reward System
A poorly aligned reward system is another reason for resistance. When employees feel that the company is not offering them enough incentives, they tend to resist such changes. They think that the change will bring more work at the same compensation.
Without offering sufficient rewards, employees are unable to find enough motivation to support and implement change.
Therefore, it is essential to alter both monetary and non-monetary rewards when bringing about a difference in the organisation. It motivates people to put their best foot forward and develop innovative ideas to make the most out of the change.
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Not Wanting to Leave Their Comfort Zone
Some employees resist changes just because they want to continue doing the things in a way they have been doing over a given period of time. They do not prefer to accept any kind of change in their habits or comfort zone. Simply put, people do not want to stray from what seems familiar to them.
For instance, an employee may resist shifting to another branch because of the comfort and familiar environment or the proximity to home that does not let them change base—people like what’s expected because it is less risky. Therefore, you need solid persuasive skills and reasons to convince people to step out of their comfort zones.
How can you acquire these skills? By enrolling yourself in leadership courses that help you develop skills for managing change in different situations and get you acquainted with various tools and techniques for change management.
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Misunderstanding the Need for Change
You can expect resistance if the employees do not understand the purpose behind the change. The primary reason behind misunderstanding the change is poor communication across the organisation. If the cause, process, and outcomes are not clearly communicated to the employees, they will become confused and anxious with the resultant change.
In such situations, it becomes vital to have effective communication. Why? To make employees understand the need for the change and how the implementation of change will be done. Moreover, the change should be carried out in various steps rather than completely renovating their working styles in a single go.
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A Climate of Mistrust in the Organisation
When individuals do not trust their superiors and colleagues for managing and implementing the required changes, they often show resistance. Therefore, if you try to implement changes in an environment where most people distrust each other, the chances of success are limited.
When facing resistance due to mistrust within the organisation, the role of transformational leadership can come into play. How does it happen, though?
Transformational leaders foster a trustworthy working environment with a clear set of values and objectives. Through their powerful influence and inspirational motivation, these leaders facilitate mutual trust among team members and the management.
Now that we know some common reasons for companies facing resistance to change let’s understand how you can overcome these challenges.
Managing Resistance to Change
People show reluctance to change by showing several symptoms like increased absenteeism, disinterest, poor performance, disloyalty, and strikes. Such symptoms make it difficult for any organisation to implement the changes successfully.
Therefore, it becomes crucial for companies to manage resistance to change and gain the consent of the employees. Following are some practical ways to manage resistance in an organisation:-
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Effective Communication is the Key
There is always some resistance in an organisation regardless of how well the change is managed. Therefore, it becomes crucial to engage those employees who are opposed to the change. How can that be helpful? By doing this, you are able to understand the viewpoints of those employees and the reasons for their opposition to the change.
Effective communication at an early stage helps to overcome the challenge of resistance by making people understand the “what”, “why”, and “how” of the proposed changes.
The best communication strategy is to target each type of audience, understand what they want, and familiarise them with the personal and professional benefits of adopting the change.
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Facilitating the Change Process
Employees fear changes due to a number of reasons that make them prone to resistance. This is where they require emotional support and their superiors’ facilitation to cope with the challenges.
Organisational leaders need to think of a change management process for facilitating change whenever necessary. They need to sit down and communicate with different departments and understand the changes that must be implemented.
Leveraging a change process that aligns with organisational norms and practices needs to be developed for successful changes and amendments.
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Determining Impacts and the Areas Affected
The change management process works as well as a precaution to inherent risk hazards and other fallacies that a company may incur at later stages of project development and during strategy implementation.
Knowing what the company wants and establishing policies that meet those amendments can help companies understand those resisting those changes. Change leaders and managers also need to offer their inputs and develop reports on different areas that are affected by upcoming changes.
Therefore, both leadership and management need to work together and develop a working relationship for reviewing its effects.
Different business units might have their own perception of changes done and amended; some might take it openly, while others may resist complying with the new reformations.
Leaders need to brainstorm and question themselves regarding:-
- What are the impacts of the change- both negative and positive?
- Who will the change affect the most- organisational structure, its people or the corporational processes?
- How will the change be received?
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Developing a Strategy for Communication
Businesses need to develop proactive action plans to mitigate the changes that started coming through and help employees adjust to those without hassle.
The managers and leaders must bring out the changes, not to keep any of the employees in the dark in regards to the amendments enforced.
Thus, communication holds the key to ensuring that the changes are communicated throughout the hierarchical chains and among different levels of employees. Moreover, the communication strategy needs to be discussed thoroughly with employees that are involved in taking a significant bulk of the workload.
Furthermore, the change management task force needs to identify and determine the communication protocols for reinstating amendments and their successful implementation.
The communication strategy must look after the timeline that zeroes in on the changes that are imparted and communicated along with different sectors—dissecting separate communication channels, platforms, tools and pathways for effective changes.
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Making Training a Priority
After sending across a change message which can also be called as a bat signal, employees must be trained well in advance to counter those reformations coming through.
Whether structured or informal, receiving training must be prioritised to not leave coworkers in testing waters. The training models will come in handy while rendering the skill-sets and knowledge to negate these changes and their challenges with finesse.
There are several aspects of management and leadership in facilitating changes that can be understood from the right set of courses. Several leading institutes across the country today offer constructive practices and toolkits for dealing with changes that are made in organisations.
Amongst these, the XLRI senior leadership program can be of great use for experienced industry professionals who require guidance in their career roles.
Managers involved in canvassing strategies need to ask reflective questions such as what sort of behaviours and skill-sets can be used to achieve optimal results? And, which kind of training and delivery methods will be most cost-effective?
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Curating and Implementing a Support Structure
Every organisation that undergoes several changes and developments needs to establish a support network or a system for the same.
A well-crafted support structure that assists employees mentally, emotionally and physically is vital for increasing a company’s chances of achieving success.
Leading managers must always work together with employees to build their proficiency, knowledge, behaviours and technical skills required for acing change management in organisational structures.
Counselling services in office spaces can come in handy for dealing with changes that are either redundant in nature or those that need regular restructures.
The continuous refinement and amendments made towards these policies can prove to be taxing for organisational workers. Hence practical measures must be taken to avoid employee burnout and a better methodology for dealing with changes.
Moreover, practising mentorship and making an open-door policy for helping employees come to terms with changes, perform their roles with perfection, and improve their well-being can be introduced.
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Measuring the Intelligently Designed Change Process
There are no set parameters or metrics that define a successful strategy. It all boils down to how well the changes are met within the workplaces and its long time results in meeting set objectives.
Measuring and understanding the changes caused can be articulated through its business impact and how leaders play with these changes to develop strategies. From a global perspective, successful transitions are those that can lead to better team performances and other internal factors that have a direct result on external growth, profits and revenues.
Evaluation while auguring change policies and strategies is done on several grounds, and all of them have a role to play in developing changes that sit well with corporates.
Managers need to design strategies that bolster their team performances and lead to lesser resistance to changes. A seamless network of carefully augmented processes helps accommodate changes in the right places and ensure that businesses don’t suffer.
The Change Process Comes a Full Circle
The change management life cycle defined above points out the different stages that undergo any new policy, action plan and other processes.
An advanced program in leadership excellence from IIM Lucknow can further clarify any residual doubts that a new manager might have with regard to developing change strategies.
Leading a change process can be a challenging and cumbersome task with its fair share of discussions, remodelling of plans and therefore, it acts as one of the prime responsibilities of managers.
With evolving leadership styles and an ever-growing need for strategic intervention at policy development levels, upcoming managers donning these roles need to be well aware of their expected duties.
Roles and Responsibilities that Constitute a Change Manager/Leadership Role
Every organisation has specific drivers of change that plan and execute as per their in-charge’s deployments. However, the craft and ability to lead the impact caused by these changes requires one to have a rationally based thinking pattern along with a quest to make their organisation a dominant player on all fronts.
“It’s not the strongest of species that survive, nor the most intelligent ones that survive, but the ones that are most adaptable to changes.”
The famous and thought-provoking quote described above by Charles Darwin shows how important for changes to grow further in lives. We as humans have been a result of evolution (changes) that have happened over a period of time.
We evolved from our forefathers, The Neanderthals, who were evidently the first-early humans to have walked on two feet!
The world around us has been one significant monumental change that happened consistently for a dedicated time period.
The list of significant “changes” goes on and on. Even in corporate terms, changes in terms of bookkeeping, maintenance of records, server-based storage and other factors have left firms with numerous benefits.
Today, organisations perform tasks by taking the help of both human and computer-based resources to arrive at a conclusion. With changing times and the advancement of technologies, the changes have been imperative in specific managerial and leadership roles.
Change management is an umbrella term given for the entire set of tasks that lead, manage, and facilitate changes throughout organisational structures.
A change manager is a competent individual that is entrusted with the job of planning, developing, delivering, and tracking change management deliverables along with resources.
The different areas of change managers include heading communications, training new employees, stakeholder engagement, change impact assessments, organisational readiness analysis for preparing future projects, coaching, resistance management, and change reinforcement, amongst others.
Managers who need further assistance with a concise understanding of their job roles and duties can enrol for the executive development program offered by XLRI.
These programs offer a crystal clear view over things and help businesses accommodate changes without fretting over pipeline issues, schemas and other organisational flows.
A change manager needs to perform the following roles and responsibilities in their careers:-
Analysis Related Roles
The first segment of a change manager’s roles and responsibilities include leading and managing the analysis aspect of their organisations. Under this role, the prospective change manager is required to execute and analyse strategies that deal with complex changes quickly and effortlessly.
Several operations are a part of any given organisation, with each of them having its own complexities, internal processes, and steps. Analysing all these processes backed with data tracking is a primary role that change managers need to devote time.
The analysis of different procedures helps managers highlight the areas that lag behind in achieving expected results or those that can be sped up to avoid any technological lapses.
Maximising Change Adoption
It’s more of a daily based role that managers perform while on the job. It’s to maximise change adoption and describe its impacts on people, processes and technology.
Several employees, coworkers, stakeholders, and other associates will have to deal with changes taking place and work accordingly.
More often than not, they can pose a challenge in regards to accepting those reformations and act as resistors to avoid accepting those amendments coming through.
Leveraging a change management process that negotiates with these individuals successfully and helps them accept those changes made is another vital responsibility that these managerial departments perform.
Managers involved in looking after change management duties need to ensure that their employees and other personnel involved in change paradigms don’t nullify all the advancements in organisations.
Therefore, managers need to be well-equipped with public speaking skills along with the power to influence others to avoid any disputes due to changes made in firms.
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Designing Pathways for Making Changes
Change managers need to be great executioners for implementing the agreed and defined process. The entire buildup of a change process lies in understanding that this process will have a significant role to play in other techniques, too and will operate along with workflows.
Managers in this role need to thoroughly understand the process they have developed and gauge its association in setting targets, meeting them, reviewing the effectiveness of strategies, and their efficiency in achieving desired results.
Change managers need to oversee and coordinate all activities that involve auditing changes in the working environment. They head the change management function and note whether its team members are skilful enough to work their way out through challenges.
Lastly, managers also need to evaluate performance metrics against the already established critical success factors and deploy actions that are corrective measures for plugging any loopholes within the process.
Also Read : Top 15 Change Management Pitfalls to Avoid
Making Adequate Submission for Changes
The submission aspect of making changes is quite similar to curating college and school projects: the change submitter, the position name given to the managers that perform these roles.
The responsibility of the submission manager for implementing changes revolves around overall planning, initiation and execution of upcoming amendments that need to be done in corporational junctures.
Proper delegation of work as per employees’ competencies is a vital aspect for managing change in any organisation. In order to achieve this, managers need to gather change-related information.
Moreover, managers need to set up practices that help in assessment, evaluation and set risks for accommodating changes—identification and utilising resources that undergo changes and implementing them wherever necessary are essential.
Also Read : 4 Steps to Improve Your Leadership: Managing to Be the Best
Implementation of Changes
Change implementers are the personnel entrusted with the duty of providing change-related information to change submitters. They both need to work in unison and fathom pathways for developing technical accuracy and feasibility for change requests.
The documentation of change-related activities needs to be done for making changes as described by top-tier leadership and executive departments.
These managers also need to document closure activities in change records and complete them along with objectives defined by organisations.
They also need to act as mediators for situations wherein there’s an escalation caused by deviations from plans that compromise appropriate management.
Also Read : 8 Steps for an Effective Change Management Process
Change Management Consultant
A change related organisation needs someone who can help the firms with alternative paths when things go askew.
The change consultants are professionals hired by organisations or practice independently to increase proficiency and quicker adoption of changes that ensure optimal results.
These change-related consultants are vital cogs for any organisation since they help carry out critical tasks for meeting and achieving the company’s objectives.
It’s a people-centric role that focuses on moving impacted audiences from the current business state to a future well-augured one in a seamless and efficient manner.
However, while driving and setting up mechanisms for changes, consultants must make sure that all transitions, including those made to business processes, systems and technology, job roles, organisation structures, and others, are made safely and with suitable norms.
Also Read : 5 Steps To Work Your Place Out In The Office Hierarchy
Staying Consistent with Changes: Sharing Duties in Different Roles
The dynamics of change and its management at organisational levels require a well-formulated strategy and critical personnel to bring out these changes while mitigating its challenges successfully.
Be it pursuing a role of transformational leadership, HR managers and other managerial career paths, one needs to have a robust understanding of core particulars that conform to the set of jobs.
Also Read : Qualities of a Transformational Leader you must possess
The executive development programs offered by XLRI and other esteemed institutes shed light on the roles and responsibilities that are performed by professionals involved in leading and coming up with changes in corporational structures.
The paragraphs above highlight the top-performing and high-paying roles that constitute the world of change management environments. It’s clear from the information provided above that the change setups are aligned towards carrying out hosts of tasks that involve different departments.
Furthermore, change management is a facet of an organisation that requires interaction with all other departments that feature any given corporation. These roles are designed to adhere to different phases and processes that undergo the implementation of changes.
From the analysis front, change managers go deeper into insights by leveraging tools for analysing various strategies and their critical output in smoothening operations.
Other roles are tailored towards maximising change adoption and how end-users form a perception of these amendments coming through.
However, it’s one of the most taxing and complex roles since it demands positive reception of changes made by employees and associates that are impacted by these amendments.
Change submission managers and those entrusted with its implementation work together to plan, monitor, and document audits that contribute to changes.
Also, organisations hire change management consultants that help in shifting audiences and others affected by changes from a position of decay to that of growth and market success.
Also Read : Change Management Process & How It Works
Managing Change in an Organisation: It all Boils Down to Execution
A company has several concordant procedures to the influx of resources, capital, human workforce, cash reserves and other mechanics. Moreover, there are several outflows and things that act as “outputs” given off by organisations.
In between these internal and external flows, the changes that crept up as a result of advancements made in the organisation process can significantly impact meeting objectives.
Therefore, the management of these changes are taken care of, performed, observed and mitigated by an exceptional team of managers who possess the knowledge and practical strategies for the same.
It’s no denying that surveying changes and managing them to not interfere with corporational tasks are a challenging practice. Still, it has long term rewards in making firms proficient and more receptive to upcoming opportunities.
Fresh graduates and newcomers who are interested in leapfrogging in their change management job roles can enrol for the courses designed to teach its finer aspects. Amongst these, the advanced program in leadership for business excellence from IIM Lucknow can assist in the formulation of successful career journeys.
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