Change Management – A New Perspective

By

Mr. Saji Joseph
Mr. Bhargav Pandya
Lecturer
Shree Leuva Patel Trust MBA Mahila College
Amreli (Gujarat)
E-mail: bhpandya@rediffmail.com
 

Introduction:

In today's business environment change has become very imperative considering the sea change in business models and advent of information technology. Now a days companies are doing their best to deal with these changes. Organizations are becoming flatter and less hierarchical in order to survive in this new bandwagon of reengineering and downsizing. It has become very crucial for manager to act as a change agent to surmount this kind of business environment. In this backdrop this article tries to address how to carry out change successfully by giving an overview on the new change model i.e. ADKAR model. We have also tried to list out the steps that are involved in introducing the change in the organization successfully.

What is change?

First of all, we will try do define the word change. What do we exactly mean by change? A change in simple words means making things different. From  organizational viewpoint it means changing the business models, strategy, policies processes, human resource practices, performance appraisals so and so forth. It is a crucial job if any manager to navigate the change.

Why manage change?

Whether you are an executive, supervisor, coach, consultant, project team leader or manager of any type where your job is to manage people, you likely have experienced resistance to change from employees. However, you may not recognize the role that you can play in preventing that resistance and leading change. Most managers do not make this connection until they have personally experienced failure in an important change project.

Forces for change

The ADKAR model is a change management tool that is simple and easy to understand, yet very effective for managers and change management teams. We receive more calls for information about this model than any other. It is used as a resistance management tool, an assessment device and to help change management teams organize their work. 

This model helps answer questions like:

• Why is communication so important during change? 
• Why do employees resist change? 
• Why do executive business leaders need to be active and visible sponsors of change?
• Why do employees become stressed and distracted from day to day work? 
• How can I find the barrier point to change, and manage employee or management resistance? 

An organization's culture, history, values and capacity for change are potential obstacles for change management teams. Consultants and change management teams often address these potential barriers with assessments. Assessments as a measurement instrument are interesting, but how can they really be used to affect change? Understanding the ADKAR model and the associated enablers for change will help answer this question and provide a useful foundation for how assessments can help manage change.

Change management process:

Introducing change is a definite process in which one has to follow different steps in order. Each of these steps assumes it won significance and ordering. We list out the following steps that are involved in carrying out any change successfully.

The change management process is the sequence of steps or activities that a change management team or project leader would follow to apply change management to a project or change. Based on Prosci's research of the most effective and commonly applied change, most change management processes contain the following three phases:

Phase 1 - Preparation, assessment and strategy development
Phase 2 - Detailed planning and change management implementation
Phase 3 - Data gathering, corrective action and recognition

These phases result in the following approach as shown below in Figure 1.

It is important to note what change management is and what change management is not, as defined by the majority of research participants.

Change management is not a stand-alone process for designing a business solution.
Change management is the processes, tools and techniques for managing the people-side of change.
Change management is not a process improvement method.

These two views of change, the top-down executive's view and the bottom-up employee's view, create two distinct challenges for managing change. These two challenges can be referred to as organizational change management (from the manager's perspective) and individual change management (from the employee's perspective). Both are skills that today's leaders need for success.

Organizational change management is the perspective of business leadership from the top looking down into the organization. The focus is around broad change management practices and skills that will help the organization understand, accept and support the needed business change. The emphasis is on communications, training and the overall culture or value system of the organization.

Individual change management is the management of change from the perspective of the employees. They are the ones who ultimately must implement the change. The focus for individual change management is around the tools and techniques to help employees through the transition. Managers and supervisors must provide the coaching required to help individuals understand their role and the decisions they make in the change process.

Overall, change management is about helping people through change. It is the process, tools and techniques for proactively managing the people side of change in order to achieve the desired business results.

Bibliography:

• Robbins P Stephen," Organizational Behaviour"New Delhi, Pearson Education, Tenth Edition
• introduction@prosci.com
   

Mr. Saji Joseph
Mr. Bhargav Pandya
Lecturer
Shree Leuva Patel Trust MBA Mahila College
Amreli (Gujarat)
E-mail: bhpandya@rediffmail.com
 

Source: E-mail September 6, 2005

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