What yAny change in an organization can be pretty chaotic, but organizational change is a unique beast to tackle.
What does organizational change mean?
Let’s begin by defining the meaning and being able to dissect it all. According to TechTarget, “organizational change management (OCM) is a framework for managing the effect of new business processes, changes in organizational structure or cultural changes within an enterprise. Simply put, OCM addresses the people side of change management.”
I love the way they addressed it as “the people side” of change management.
When organizations begin to create action plans for changes, they forget a very important part of it all; their people.
- How will the leadership communicate things to their teams?
- How will everyone handle the change?
- Is the leadership equipped to handle any challenges?
It isn’t just about the changes in process, but most importantly the people.
Despite all the effort made, the #1 reason of why organizational change fails is lack of change management leadership.
It takes a lot more than just shifting procedures and people in an organizational chart.
The core of your business, the leadership group and their teams, need to be at the top of the priority of the organizational change plans. Effective leadership is crucial and essential to successful organizational change.
In the process of planning your next move, strategizing, and calculating finances, most organizations FAIL to see the need for change management leadership (and their training).
Some people may take the change badly, others may feel confused. This leads to the change affecting production/performance. Eventually, it could lead to a stack of new problems, disoriented staff, and chaos in the overall management.
Some questions to ask when creating an action plan are:
- Is our leadership team equipped with the right tools to successfully roll out the plan?
- What trainings would our team benefit from to make this change effective?
- Do we foresee any issues/challenges with staff, communication, operations?
- Have we implemented action items for communication, collaboration, and commitment for team members?
Change is inevitable and a key component to keep an organization healthy. In this new age of disruption, businesses live and die by their ability to adapt. What matters most is how effectively this plan is carried out. I leave you with this quote:
“Culture does not change because we desire to change it. Culture changes when the organization is transformed – the culture reflects the realities of people working together everyday.”
– Frances Hesselbein