Change Management

What is Change Management?

Change isn’t easy…we all hear news of failed attempts at change. There are successes too, but not as many as we might imagine. Research backs this up. 

This makes good and best practice so much more important in the field of change management. Interestingly, the research also points to the fact that change initiatives that use proven change management approaches have a much higher chance of succeeding. It makes sense!

Change management focuses on how we prepare and support individuals and teams to successfully adopt a change to drive organisational outcomes. Change management provides a mature and structured suite of approaches, developed over many decades.

Individual change

Understanding individual change means we need to understand the psychological and physiological reactions we experience when faced with change. There is an innate tendency in many situations to resist change. Our resilience and mental toughness are put to the test. Understanding what happens to us when things change and how we can best adapt and cope with change means we can better prepare ourselves and support others. 

Understanding what will genuinely help people transition to a new way of working and a different way of thinking and behaving is crucial. Appropriately providing support can make all the difference in helping change to become a reality. There is a lot of recent research derived from the change management, psychology and neuroscience worlds that can help make change easier to comprehend, plan for and deliver.

Organisational Change 

Change at the initiative level can be approached through projects and programmes. Change management should complement project and programme management. However, the people side of change is still often under-appreciated in many organisations which explains why so many projects fail to deliver their anticipated value.

An organisational change enables a wider view of change. Whilst change is still happening at an individual level, it is imperative that change is appropriately planned, coordinated and led. Appreciating what we are trying to achieve, who is impacted and how, what happens if things go wrong, are all major concerns. Thankfully, there are many insightful and helpful change management approaches that can help gain the clarity needed, so we can anticipate things sooner, plan more effectively and respond appropriately as situations arise.