The emotions Targets feel during an organizational change can easily be compared to a monster roller coaster. There are ups, downs, curves, slow climbs, fast descents, unexpected speed changes, and head-snapping starts and stops. But we know what you are probably thinking. You think this time it is going to be different because this change is a positive one! It is going to make things better for everyone involved. So why are people still grumbling?
There is no doubt building readiness for change takes time, energy, and resources. Ensuring you have the four factors of Sponsorship, Cultural Fit, Agent Capacity and Target Readiness allows you to build readiness at speed. However, in our 30+ years of Change Management industry experience, we’ve witnessed a lot of Change Management Consultants who miss one of the most powerful tools available for building Target readiness: involvement.
Given that somewhere between 30-50% of the success of any transformational change program depends on maintaining visible, active Sponsorship throughout the duration of the program, it is no surprise that if your Sponsorship is not what it needs to be, your entire change may be at risk.
The financial investment in a new ERP system, such as Workday or Kronos is enormous and the resource requirements are huge. But, much to the chagrin of many organizations, for as much money that is going out the door on sophisticated new systems such as these, Return on Investment is not always a guarantee. Organizations often overlook the significant amount of time and energy required to fully implement these systems!
If you are part of a project team assigned to enterprise-wide change you will need to have Change Agents to support the implementation. Yes, members of the project team will likely be Change Agents, but you will need to build a network as well.
Over the past 30+ years, IMA’s change management experts have been helping organizations worldwide implement complex changes. From Mergers and Acquisitions to Shared Services to IT implementations, we’ve pretty much seen it all. One of the distinct advantages of our work is that we have an opportunity to get a bird's eye view into what is going on across global enterprises in terms of change management challenges and practices.
You don’t have to look far to see an example of breakthrough, disruptive change. Uber. Airbnb. Dollar Shave Club. These are highly disruptive, innovative concepts that have radically transformed their respective marketplaces. These are great ideas that were scalable and able to be implemented at speed.
Despite the increasing maturity and sophistication around how to manage change projects, there is still one myth out there that seems to sustain itself from the boardroom through senior management ranks: “Just getting planned messages out is enough to not only generate commitment to the change, but to actually have people change their behavior.” Unfortunately, it’s just not that simple.
Are you in the market for a change management methodology? Perhaps you’ve never used a structured process before and are facing a daunting, transformational change. Or maybe you’d like to evaluate your current approach, because what worked for your organization 7 or 10 years ago isn’t working in today's environment.
Fast. Faster. Fastest! In today's crazy, busy work world, the drive to accelerate transformational change, enterprise wide changes, really any type of business change is greater than ever before. Organizations who are able to implement faster are figuratively one step ahead of their competition and ultimately more successful.
