So much is written about organisational change management and the sometimes tenuous relationship with the wider organisational strategy. Often change programmes are planned and implemented as a sub-set of some larger piece of work aimed at delivering a specific outcome – in a word: projects. This happens all the time.
Besides, isn’t the idea that project-based change management effort is aimed at ensuring that the people go along for the ride – preferably willingly – completely valid and true?
Or is it something that should be far more pervasive than an on again/off again activity, part of the organisational DNA, a more regular phenomenon? If so, might it mean that change becomes less of an issue, and more of a way of life?
Not much is known in the broader business community about change management strategy and how it can be successfully aligned to the commercially-driven vision, mission and strategy of most organisations. Here, I aim to introduce some of you to change management strategies which, hopefully, may help to firm up your approach and plan on how to implement the management of change in your organisation.
If not, I genuinely hope that it will at least shed some light on some of the issues that need to be thought through before triggering your next change initiative.
The Problem: Approaching Change, is Change in itself
Overlooking the Change Battlefield
Change Management Strategy is often overlooked. Quite a few change management practitioners dive straight into the formulation of change management plans, communication and engagement plans, change readiness assessments - the tactical and operational aspects of managing change - all without giving much consideration to the "battlefield" on which change is about to be implemented.
The “battlefield” I mention here is analogous to those forces that will inevitably resist and obstruct the change effort that is necessary for the organisation to succeed. In this sense, the “battlefield” is always present.
Avoiding "Expensive" Over-Planning
Some even consider the time taken to formulate an appropriate Change Strategy as being an expensive and valueless exercise: the domain of consultants trying to extend billable time unnecessarily. Herein lies the problem. The rush to "get stuck in" has often cost organisations far more in the end than a carefully thought out and understood strategic approach to managing high impact, expensive change.
Change is Difficult & Unpredictable Anyway
Anyone familiar with organisational change - large or small - knows that it is always difficult and largely unpredictable. Mistakes will always be made, the thinking behind a correctly applied change management strategy is that it aims to significantly reduce the number of mistakes, not eliminate them.
There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things – Niccolo Machiavelli
Change Management Strategy: What does it look like?
So, why do so many change practitioners rush to the tactical and operational attack plans before thinking through the change landscape and terrain? Often because they are driven by urgency - there is no time to think strategically, no time to choose the most appropriate approach to the change "battlefield" and the challenges that lie ahead.
Change management strategy is more about the relationship between what is changing, and the environment in which that change is going to take place - and how to approach this relationship.
4 Change Management Strategies
There is an abundance of literature on the subject of change and change management, mostly focused on the implementation aspects of change and how to "go about it". I cut my organisational change and renewal teeth on Deborah Ancona and several other esteemed authors from the Sloan and Simmons Schools of Management.
My opinion is that some effort is made in the work that Ancona and her team did to identify an approach to managing change that considers the general characteristics of the subject of change management activity – the people that are expected to change.
In crudely paraphrasing a piece of their work (and I hope they forgive me for any inaccuracies), a list of four, broad approaches and related assumptions about the change "battlefield" is formed:
The Empirical/Rational Approach: people are rational and will follow self-interest;
The Normative/Re-Educative Approach: people are social beings and will adhere to cultural norms and values;
The Power/Coercive Approach: people are fundamentally compliant and will do what they are told; and
The Environment/Adaptive Approach: people oppose loss and disruption, but they adapt readily to new circumstances.
Each of the above four strategies then contain elements that aid in guiding the selection of activities that need to occur, and factors that need to be considered, in detail in the tactical and operational plans we all know and love. Pragmatically, often a blend of these strategies is more appropriate than a “one size fits all” choice, but a dominant approach frequently emerges.
The complexity of selecting the right strategy must also occur whilst considering factors such as:
The degree of expected resistance;
How high the stakes are;
The time frame in which the change needs to occur;
The availability of expertise; and
The degree that the organisation depends on its people.
The key point here is that rushing into a “let’s do this, and let’s do that” change management planning session too quickly without being thoroughly familiar with what we are getting ourselves into; is dangerous and potentially damaging. Some will argue that all this strategising this takes place during stakeholder identification and assessment as the change management plan is formulated. But I would suggest that this position is similar (using the battlefield analogy), to barging into a fight knowing who you are going to fight, but not knowing how (and if) they will fight back. A broader, governing strategy needs to be in place if the unexpected occurs. Oh, and then there is the question of whether (or not), the organisation is ready for change… But that discussion is for another day.
