When your organization takes on an initiative to improve performance or address key issues, they often require change; change to processes, job roles, organizational structures, and technology. However, it is the employees of your organization who will ultimately have to change how they do their jobs.
If these individuals are unsuccessful in their personal transitions (i.e., if they don’t embrace and learn a new way of working), the initiative will fail. If employees embrace and adopt to the changes required by these initiatives, however, it will deliver the expected results.
Change is never comfortable and may times resisted as it brings about new challenges and often causes people to reach outside their comfort zones.
Change management can be defined as “the processes, tools, and techniques involved in managing the people approach to change, with the objective of achieving a successful business outcome.”
A central idea of change management is that no change happens in isolation. In one way or another, change impacts the whole organization and all the people in it. With good change management, you can encourage everyone to adapt and embrace a new way of working.
When organizational leaders or managers seek to initiate change, they are often optimistic about the process. They can see clearly how beneficial the proposed changes will be and assume others will see it just as clearly. They have confidence that their vision will transition easily to the entire organization, and often define too narrowly the range of people who will be affected.
Organizational culture is the unspoken, often unrecognized, system of beliefs and expectations that structures the way people in an organization view what is appropriate or possible behaviour. In much simpler terms, culture has often been described as “the way we do things around here.”
Organizational culture does not arise by accident. It is the accumulation of organizational experiences and beliefs about “what works.” While it creates a strong value system, this deeply-embedded system of values and beliefs frequently comes into conflict with the requirements of the organization to adapt for the future.
Organizational agility results from a careful attention placed on helping people regard change as a positive and valuable thing. A lack of attention in developing such agility means that even simple changes of procedure can meet resistance. More complex changes are likely to include elements that touch not only on beliefs about change itself, but conflicts on the way things should or should not be done, creating additional resistance.
Effective change managers identify the cultural sensitivities that a particular change brings about. They develop strategies for promoting change in both the specific cultural “artifact” that is creating resistance, and in the culture of the organization with regard to change more generally. An awareness of culture, the insight to recognize its contribution to change readiness and resistance, and the understanding of strategies leaders can use to shape culture are all part of the personal toolkit of effective change managers. The organization culture, and its ability to support or inhibit the change process, needs to be considered in any change process in order to be successful.
See also: The Change Management Body of Knowledge
Change management recognizes that change can be a painful process which has far-reaching implications on the organization and the people working for it.
Here are four key principles to keep in mind when implementing change management:
Automation professionals are often involved in change projects and initiatives as part of their jobs. Technologies are evolving at a fast pace, and the pandemic has presented new challenges where companies have had to adapt faster than ever before.
Here are some examples of the application of change management within automation:
Read more: "The New Normal"