The Change Game: Strategies for Better Organizational Change

We all have experienced big changes at our organizations driven by new priorities mandated by leadership – staffing changes, reorganizations, technical updates, etc. These changes often cause headaches for everyone. But there are established best practices and approaches that can make organizational changes less painful, and even improve people’s work lives.

 

One example: I served as the change management lead for a Fortune 500 client on a company-wide program to make their business more secure and reduce risk. The project included technical and behavioral changes that would impact how employees worked day-to-day. This was a big lift, and there was little institutional experience to draw from.

Through diligent planning and execution, our efforts were successful. We completed thousands of technical upgrades, oversaw successful change adoption across divisions, and saved the business millions.

At the project close, we assessed our change management efforts – looking at what worked well and what didn’t. The following top 5 lessons we learned could be applied to any change you are trying to make at your organization:

1. Get Key Leaders on Board as Project Sponsors. According to research from Prosci – an industry leader in change management – when sponsors are active and visible to the staff, the planned changes are 4X more likely to succeed. They can be either the #1 reason for success, or the #1 reason for failure. Sponsors can help by: A) Showing their support and commitment for the project, including helping the team identify problems early and resolve them (e.g. budget issues, staffing needs). B) Communicating directly to employees at town halls, all-staff meetings, and other forums. They should articulate why this project is an investment for the organization, what benefits can be expected from the change, and how the staff plays an important supporting role. C) Building internal support across departments to help pave the way for the project team’s requests.

2. Manage Change Initiatives Like a Project. To be successful, we needed a detailed, clear project plan that would be flexible to new changes but structured enough to keep us on course. So we developed a three-phase approach to manage our work which included: A) Phase 1: Preparation for the required activities (drafting communications plans, training sessions, etc.); gathering data that would inform our planning (identifying potential roadblocks and challenging personalities); and developing key performance metrics. B) Phase 2: Manage the activities and remediate issues; track performance and share updates; and adjust the overall plan as needed. C) Phase 3: Review performance and help to sustain the change. In Phase 1, we developed a change management tracker in order to follow the current status of each activity. During Phases 2 and 3, we updated this tracker every Tuesday and Thursday, and used it to share updates with leadership and staff. We also highlighted the unanticipated delays and issues, which helped getting leadership on board to resolve these challenges.

3. Invite Staff Mavens to the Decision-Making Table. We knew it would be critical to get influential staff to play a leading role as advocates for change. We identified mavens who were respected within their teams and interested in the anticipated change benefits (reduced cybersecurity risks, more time to work on their pet projects, etc.). These mavens – known as change agents – joined small group meetings where we shared the latest project news and opened up for questions. Then, they became our eyes and ears on the ground within their teams. They served as listeners for their colleagues and shared back the issues they heard from colleagues (such as confusion about the project timeline) so we could course-correct. They also shared ideas on how to create meaningful incentives to encourage new behaviors. Our change agents were a huge reason for our success, and we recognized them publicly for their efforts.

 

4. Bring in Outside Experts to Support the Cause. Many of the changes were technical, but the change management team members were not tech experts. So we identified the subject experts within the business who could: A) Highlight what changes were happening at the 10,000-foot level. B) Explain how the changes would impact different roles. C) Alleviate their initial concerns by answering questions and creating comfort. We created multiple forums for these experts to join us in staff meetings and open “office hours.”

5. Build Goodwill with Small Changes that Have a Big Impact on Employees. Business and psychology studies have demonstrated that one small change can have an outsized effect throughout an entire system. Knowing that most people wouldn’t be thrilled about mandated company changes, we worked with staff and identified one small change they wanted: improving staff meetings. With their input, we revamped the meeting structure, facilitation style, brought in subject matter experts as guest speakers, and made more adjustments. As the meetings improved, we established proof that our change initiatives could work, and they would see tangible benefits from it.

Organizational changes will continue to occur throughout your work life. Let’s reframe the stress as an opportunity to test and learn.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, share it with someone else who might be interested. If you'd like to subscribe to our monthly newsletter list, click here.  

All the best,

Dan