Organisations today operate in a continuously evolving world, and the ability to adapt, to leverage opportunities and rise to challenges - is becoming ever more important if organisations are to deliver successfully on their ambitions.
In this blog we'll cover:
- Change Management as a Collaboration
- The Opportunities for Learning and Development Teams
- The Prosci Methodology
Adapting means change, and organisations are continually identifying, developing and implementing initiatives aimed at moving their organisations forward and navigating them towards a more successful future.
Such initiatives usually involve some combination of changes to process, organisation and technology, and all require effort to design and implement. For a change with all three of these elements, there's a need to:
- Design future processes and organisation
- Map processes to organisation to determine who will be doing what
- Design and develop enabling technology
- Manage implementation
All these steps are concerned with the "Technical Side" of change and they're about designing, developing and implementing new ways of getting things done. Its important work and there's no doubting its contribution to successful change.
However, for most changes there's also a vitally important "People Side" which compliments the "Technical Side" and requires an organisation to engage it's people, so they can embrace and adopt whatever the change is that's being implemented.
"You can have great technical delivery but if what you've delivered doesn't get used - then how much benefit does the organisation gain? How much difference does the change make? Usually, very little."
This is where Change Management comes in, Change Management is the discipline which brings a structured approach to addressing the people-side of change, and maximising the chances of whatever is delivered technically being adopted and therefore delivering benefit.
Download: Seven Compelling Reasons to Deploy Change Management
Change Management as a Collaboration
Change Management roles are becoming more and more commonplace, with titles such as Change Manager, Change Lead, Change Practitioner or maybe even OCM (Organisational Change Manager) lead frequently coming up.
However, while having someone in this type of specialist change management role is definitely needed, change management only works effectively if they can act as an orchestrator of others.
The bottom line is that change is introduced through leaders in the organisation, not by a Change Manager or Change Practitioner.
Prosci's research points to four core roles that are required to play their part for change management to be effective. These are:
- Senior Sponsors
- People Managers
- Change Practitioners
- Project Managers
So, whilst it's a good thing for organisations to develop specialist change management roles, they also need to develop change management competency in leaders at all levels, and a mindset within technical delivery teams that they are developing solutions "with adoption and usage in mind".
The Opportunity for Learning and Development Teams
Every organisation today is challenged by change, and Change Management is becoming increasingly importance as a strategic competence. This is being recognised by leadership teams, many of whom now see change and specifically addressing the people-side of it as a business priority.
At its heart, building the Change Management capability that organisations need is about developing individual capabilities across the four core roles above, resulting in a collaborative approach to Change Management. A future state where everyone knows the role they need to play in managing change, and what they should expect from others.
This creates an opportunity for any Learning and Development team with a desire to contribute strategic value. Change Management capability is not something you can buy in, it needs to be developed internally, and as such learning and development teams are in a great place to help senior leaders address what is for many, an increasingly pressing need.
Webinar: How to Engage Sponsors
Partnering with Prosci - The Prosci Methodology
While such a Change Management building initiative is best led internally, there's considerable value to be gained from partnering with experts in the Change Management field.
Prosci Europe - the organisation I work for, has many years experience in helping it's clients develop competencies in Change Management, and we have a comprehensive range of training interventions, explicitly intended to develop the collective competence described above.
Prosci have invested heavily in research and the development of tools and training, so you don't have to. Much of the work you would otherwise have to do to develop Change Management capability has already been done, making Prosci a good choice of partner for those wishing to rapidly improve their Change Management maturity.
If you can see how developing such a collective Change Management competency could benefit your organisation and you would like to learn more, please either get in touch or come and see us at Stand D200 at the World of Learning Conference and Exhibition on the 10th-11th October this year.
