Handling change through change management

Editor’s note: Michelle Stockman is an independent consultant with her company, Fort Smith-based Msaada Group. Stockman earned a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University-Chicago in communications and fine arts, and earned a master’s in entrepreneurship from Western Carolina University. Her thoughts on business success appear each week on The City Wire.

Even though we live in an age of constant change, most people will admit they do not like it when things change. Go on Facebook any time an interface change occurs and you’ll see the back lash of critical comments bemoaning the changes.

Twenty years ago, change came in small increments where a company changed a product or network television changed a seasonal show line-up. Today, change is as constant as the traffic in L.A. We are evolving faster than any generation before now, and we hear about it every millisecond on our favorite social media outlets.

In business, how do we handle change? What change is necessary and what are the different types of change to manage? Change Management is the key to planning for changes while mitigating the risks that go along with change. Wikipedia notes; “Change management is a structured approach to shifting/transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. It is an organizational process aimed at empowering employees to accept and embrace changes in their current business environment.”

Change management also includes customers, especially in managing their potential responses to the changes.

Businesses face changes in many different ways, including regulatory, economic, corporate mission, strategic, operational, technical and product changes. Additionally, personnel and leadership changes may have big impacts. Having a simple plan to address the different types of change is the key to guiding decisions, communications, feedback, operations and so forth. However, taking the time to put any plan together let alone one to manage change is often the last thing a business owner wants to tackle. Besides what’s more important, making money or building a long-term solid foundation?

Change Management enables a chain reaction of events within an organization that begins with an understanding of the leaders as well as the group member dynamics in which the change will occur. The group’s expectations are aligned, communicated and integrated before tasks and timelines are assigned to implement the upcoming changes.

Change management makes use of performance metrics that can include human resource, financial, operational and communication metrics. Additionally, risks are identified to the extent possible with plans to mitigate those for a smooth implementation.

Change management author and speaker Jeff Haitt suggests, successful change management is more likely to occur if the following are included:
• Define measurable stakeholder aims, create a business case for their achievement (which should be continuously updated), and monitor assumptions, risks, dependencies, costs, return on investment, dis-benefits and cultural issues affecting the progress of the associated work.

• Use communications that inform various stakeholders of the reasons for the change (why?), the benefits of successful implementation (what is in it for us, and you) as well as the details of the change (when? where? who is involved? how much will it cost? etc.).

• Devise an appropriate yet effective education, training and/or skills upgrading scheme if needed for the organization or customers.

• Counter resistance from the employees or customers and align them to overall strategic direction of the organization.

• Monitor of the implementation and fine-tune as required.

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Stockman can be reached at [email protected]