It’s not an exaggeration to suggest that effective change is the sole mechanism through which businesses stay alive. In the competitive landscape, the only constant is change, whether on the micro or the macro scale.
You’re probably used to making small tactical adjustments when external changes occur, like moving prices to reflect current value, or adopting new sales channels when they appear.
But what about the meatier stuff?
Is your business capable of quickly responding to new economic shifts? If necessary, could you enact a meaningful cultural change within your organization that will align with the latest technologies?
These questions are the foundation of change process management: possibly the most important meta-skill your business needs for sustainable success.
In this article, we’re going to explain the tenets of change process management and provide an outline of how you can get it done efficiently and effectively through insider tips, techniques, and software.
What is change process management?
Change is an unavoidable force of nature that is particularly volatile in the highly competitive business landscape.
Accordingly, your organization should be prepared for it.
The question is, how do you prepare for the unpredictable?
This is the basis of change process management. It is the idea that, while you can’t ever have perfect information about the nature of the change that will occur, you can prepare protocol, processes, and mindsets to deal with change as a whole.
Change process management, also known as change management, is a broad term that encapsulates everything that deals with the most effective organizational reactions to change, wherever they come from.
According to the Human Change Management Institute, the main drivers of change in business contexts are:
- Technological evolution
- Process reviews
- Crises
- Consumer habit changes
- Pressure from new business entrants
- Acquisitions and mergers
- Organizational restructuring
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There are a few academic models that attempt to describe the best practices for change management. Let’s take a look at 3 of the top models for managing change:
Kotter’s 8-step model
Kotter’s 8-step change management model outlines the following steps for enacting effective change within an organization:
- Creating a Sense of Urgency
- Building a Guiding Coalition
- Forming a Strategic Vision and Initiatives
- Enlisting a Volunteer Army
- Enabling Action by Removing Barriers
- Generating Short-Term Wins
- Sustaining Acceleration
- Instituting Change
It’s a very useful outline for leaders to follow during truly unexpected change events. It delves into specific, highly actionable strategic techniques for the leadership team to follow that will help lessen the common pitfalls of organizational change.
However, it’s been rightly criticized for positioning change as a singular ‘event’, rather than an amorphous, ongoing reality for organizations.
Lewin’s model
A simpler offering from Lewin distills organizational change into 3 distinct stages:
- Unfreeze: where the business acknowledges how its current model conflicts with changing circumstances.
- Change: where the business employs any strategic actions that accommodate or benefit from the changing circumstances.
- Refreeze: where you institutionalize strategic changes by embedding them into the company culture.
Unlike Kotter, Lewin is ready to point out the cyclical nature of his change model.
So, after the organization has ‘refrozen’, it should be equally prepared to unfreeze when yet further changes arise.
Kubler-Ross model
As a final note on change models, it’s important not to ignore the ‘human’ aspect of organizational change.
While it might be easy to whip up some new company policy that doesn’t account for the reactions of the individuals who may be committed to the status quo.
You may know of Kubler-Ross’s work on stages of change acceptance in the context of death and dying–commonly known as the ‘5 stages of grief’.
However, the same curve that tracks the 5 stages can be applied to organizational change.
It isn’t as robust or academic as the other models, but it is useful to keep in the back of your mind when considering the potential emotional realities of widespread company changes on your employees.
What are change management tools and techniques?
Now you’ve had your crash-course in the academic side of change process management, let’s turn our attention to the nitty-gritty of how to get it done effectively in today’s work environment.
Like many other things, change management has been revolutionized by tech.
In the digital age, organizational change can be better performed using intelligent software in place of manual methods.
Why? Well, as you will see, there are certain features and tools that make identifying, analyzing, and executing organizational change more accurate and efficient.
Organizational dashboard
For decades prior, organizational change was just an abstract concept that people held in their heads, communicated through meetings, and maybe only captured on chalkboards or vast company files.
Nowadays, we have technology that can visually ‘map’ the key departments, workflows, and strategic actions of an organization.
Having this visual aid helps team members understand the current position of the company and the necessity of change.
Say your organization vertically integrates with a supplier.
Where before employees would only experience the effects of the change in the evolution of their duties, now they can access a top-down view of business operations to see the effects of the changes that have occurred.
staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud: your organization’s new home
The value of a visual interpretation of your organization cannot be overstated when dealing with change. That’s why we made our workspace extremely visually accessible.
Your entire team can see your business operations end-to-end, with groups, tasks, and subtasks within the context of your operations. Status buttons reflect your team’s actual work, so all your change updates can be accessed in one place.
When change happens, it’s bad practice to just assume that everyone understands where and why. Keep everyone on the same page with a visual super table.
Teams & groups management
As highlighted in Kotter’s model, change requires not only the strong will and guidance of management, but also a committed coalition. Excellent delegation is required for change to be truly effective.
You might feel as if you’ve communicated your change proposal clearly at the first pass. You might have made it clear that you are a ‘design-first’ company now, deciding to let design lead new products in place of extensive research phases.
But how could you know whether departments are implementing this change in practice?
Today, technology enables managers to tap into the beating heart of business operations, intervening at critical points where change needs to be communicated.
staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud: communication powerhouse
Status updates make communication simpler than ever before. Communicate and collaborate directly within an item, so everything stays in context.
Tag teammates and external guests, add files, and notify your team the moment something goes wrong–no change goes unaccounted for. Embed video conferences directly within items and tag attendees, so meetings turn into action items seamlessly.
Delegate change processes, centralize new workflows in one visual space, and manage your change control effectively by witnessing the effects of your new changes first-hand with staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud.
Data integrations
Business change is inspired by words but cemented by data. Numbers don’t lie, so on either side of a change it’s a great idea to gather relevant data to support certain actions and eliminate others.
How do you compete with a new market entrant aggressively undercutting you on price for their launch phase?
You probably know that you will either have to match their price offering or increase advertising spend to bolster your key value propositions. Which change initiative is most cost-effective?
Only the numbers can tell you, and thankfully technology exists that allows you to merge all your key data in one place for the most comprehensive understanding of your current position.
staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud: a world of data integrations
You can say goodbye to app-switching with staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud. With our integrations, you can plug in data from Salesforce, Shopify, and more to get a comprehensive outlook on the numbers for a better, data-driven change management process.
Build and customize data dashboards that bring all your data across boards into one place. Add counters, graphs, and charts to visualize your data in several boards. Assess data to appraise the effectiveness of change leadership and management, all in one easy-to-understand place.
staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud: game-changing software
With staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud, you’ll never be caught off-guard when things shift, and big changes need to be made.Organize your brand new workflow in an intuitive dashboard, delegate a change request, manage outcomes with crispy-clear communication tools, and make the right decisions quicker with vast data integrations to support your changes.
Never be afraid to turn and face the strange. To jumpstart your change process management in a pinch, get started quickly by giving this change management template a go.
Time to level up your change management
It’s been made clear in ancient philosophy, in religious texts, and by David Bowie – change is inevitable.
It is a force of nature, and its unpredictability is only exaggerated in the fierce competitiveness of contemporary business contexts.
Be prepared to make whatever changes are necessary and navigate the challenges that change will bring.
Make the best decisions by drawing from data, acknowledging the human element of change, and bringing your strategic vision to life in a way that everyone can fully understand and get on board with.
Most importantly? Make sure your change process can adapt as fast as changes occur. For this, a powerful and intuitive Work OS — like staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud — will be your best friend!
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