Thriving, Surviving or Failing?

Now, more than ever, the ability to effectively pivot might very well be the difference between thriving, surviving, or outright failing. Pivot, by definition, is a fundamental change in a company’s business model.

Whether the change is equipping the workforce to effectively work from home or shifting production from automotive parts to ventilators or deploying new business and technology platforms – change is challenging.

Over the past few months, we’ve highlighted the discipline, “Organization Change Management” (OCM), which addresses “the people side of change”. Change management has many moving parts, but the most important pieces are understanding the part people play, getting people on board and participating in the change.

In last month’s blog post, Organizational Change Management – Is your Organization Effectively Leading Change?, we identified two perspectives that are required to effectively manage change within a company: an individual perspective and an organizational perspective.

We stated that, according to Prosci, the organizational perspective is the process and activities that project teams utilize to support successful individual change. The individual perspective is an understanding of how people experience change.

As mentioned in our previous blog, change has become a constant. However, with change comes the natural reaction of employee resistance that organizations and leaders must be prepared for or what Prosci calls “proactive resistance management”. Resistance to change is one of the top obstacles to successful change. Here are 5 likely sources of resistance for almost any project:

• Uncertainty: Employees who are highly invested in the current way of doing work
• Pride of ownership: People who created the current way of doing work that will be changed
• Increased workload: Employees who expect more work as a result of the change
• Loss of Control: Those who advocated a particular alternative, say Option B, when Option A was ultimately selected
• Fear of the unknown: People who have been very successful and rewarded in the current way of doing work

Prosci | The Global Leader in Change Management Solutions states: How many times have you heard, “our employees are our most important asset”? Then, when it comes time for a change to be implemented, employees are sent an email on Monday for training on Tuesday for go-live on Wednesday. That is not the right way to treat people, especially the people that are your most valuable asset. By proactively engaging and supporting people in times of change, we demonstrate in action that we value them.

Investing the time and energy to manage the people side of your organizational efforts pays off in the end – in terms of success of the effort and avoidance of the numerous costs that plague poorly managed change.

Prosci’s ADKAR® Model describes change as successful when an individual has:

• Awareness of the need for change
• Desire to participate in and support the change
• Knowledge on how to change
• Ability to implement required skills and behaviors
• Reinforcement to sustain the change

If an individual is missing any of these five building blocks, then the change will not be successful. The goal, then, in leading the people side of change is ensuring that individuals have Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement.

Along with identifying why change is difficult and why some changes succeed while others are unsuccessful, the ADKAR® model also helps leaders identify what steps to take to prevent or mitigate resistance before it emerges and impacts the project and the organization.

Ultimately, change management focuses on how to help employees embrace, adopt and utilize a change in their day-to-day work. iSeek professionals trust and implement the Prosci ADKAR® Model to ensure thorough processes, minimal resistance and impact, and lasting change.

If you’re in the midst of pivoting, rethinking your strategy post-COVID-19 or making the necessary enhancements required to keep market share, don’t forget the “people side of change”. Let us help you navigate the change management process to mitigate change resistance and reach the intended ROI. Contact us today at [email protected]. Check out our website, subscribe to our blog, or follow us on LinkedIn for more insights!