March 3, 2023

By: Mahesh Bondre, Director – Consulting | Digital Engineering LTIMindtree

I remember those days when organizations built strategy for the next five or ten years and followed accordingly, yet given that we live in a volatile environment, it no longer stands to reason. The strategy is changing every day and has become the question of survival, forcing the organization to change its focus from “Run the business” to “Change the business.” Change management has become a competency for businesses to survive and grow.

We are in the VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) world, where we must focus on an organization’s three basic survival needs. Those being:

1. Cost Optimization
   2. Quality of Deliverables
   3. Faster time to market

To fulfill these needs, organizations need to undergo continuous change, and it’s not new as we have all heard the following quotes many times:
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
― Charles Darwin

Organizations are thinking about disruptive ways to enhance customer experience, technology upgrade/modernization, business agility, innovation, and so on. There are internal as well as external factors that influence organizations to adapt to change. Internal factors include people, processes, tools, technology, structure, and roles, while external factors are political, social, technological, environmental, and legal.

In all these scenarios about the change, people (62% of employees don’t like leaving their comfort zone) are the common factor for achieving intended outcomes—which is why we need “change management.”

Let’s talk about why change management is necessary.

• We change for a reason
• Organizational change requires individuals to change
• Organizational outcomes are the result of individuals

Different personas have different expectations from change management. CXOs think about competition, cost optimization, and faster time- to- market. The latest technology options and process improvement are essential for middle management. WIIIFM (What Is in It for Me?), which can boost my career, concerns the bottom layer.

According to Prosci’s best practices in change management research, initiatives with excellent change management are six times more likely to succeed than those with subpar change management.

Before we apply any change management framework, we need to understand the current level of change management maturity.

Prosci has come out with five levels of maturity.

Five Levels of Change Management Maturity (Source: porsci.com)

Level 1
Project teams are unaware of change management. They do not consider it a formal approach for managing the people side of change.

Level 2
Elements of change management begin to emerge in isolated parts of the organization. The effort to manage the people side of change is infrequent and is not centralized.

Level 3
Groups emerge using a structured change management process. Change management is still localized to particular teams or areas in the organization.

Level 4
The change management maturity model, the organization has selected a common approach and implemented standards for using change management on every new project or change.

Level 5
Change management maturity, and competency is part of the organization’s skill set.

There are various models available covering many aspects of change management. Choosing a suitable model is the key. Here is a quick view of the different models of change management.

In most of these change management frameworks, you will observe a common factor – all are human-centric.

82% of workers recently surveyed by Gartner say it’s essential for their organization to see them as a person, not just an employee,” says Cian Ó Móráin, Director of Research at Gartner. “An open-source approach provides employees with a more human deal by actively engaging them in change initiatives.”

Three shifts that will improve change management success

1. Involve employees in decision making

This may be challenging because it’s hard to include the right people at the right time and in the right way. But it’s a crucial step, increasing change success by 15%.
This shift makes change management a meritocracy, not a democracy — the best ideas always win, no matter whom they come from. Plus, it ensures a level of transparency on how decisions are made.

2. Shift implementation planning to employees

Typically, leaders own the change strategy and decide how to implement plans. Many often fail to involve employees in the initiative. Leaving the workforce out of change implementation may increase resistance and failure because employees are overwhelmed, unwilling, or unable to sustain long-term change.

3. Engage in two-way conversations throughout the process

It’s imperative to engage employees in honest conversations throughout the change process. Employees “getting it” is a driver of change success; their “liking it” isn’t. This allows them to share their questions and opinions, which drives understanding and makes them feel part of the commitment to change.

In short, to increase change initiative success, shift to an open-source approach and involve employees in decision-making and planning through continued conversation.

Let me tell you about my experience as a change agent in one of my assignments where the US-based financial institute wanted to change from traditional to a more advanced and wanted to transform their modus operandi with a modern outlook. They had a strong Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and used to follow the same for many years. There were chances that people may return to their old way of working (their comfort zone) either during or after the change management program is over.

I followed the ten steps plan with the ADKAR model(Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement) where involving people helped me to retain the new state.

The 10-steps are as follows:

1. Change Management Readiness Assessment – covering culture, technology, tools, and processes
2. Conduct a design thinking workshop with various groups – define the future state and Objectives, Key Results (OKRs)
3. Define the transformation strategy along with people, Applicable Key Levers, and Transformation Task Force
4. Applied Change Management Framework – ADKAR (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and  Reinforcement)
5. Maintained RAID (Risks, Assumptions, Impediments, and Dependencies) and then prioritized and planned the activities and prerequisites
6. Decided the initiatives for the OKRs
7. Led the transformation task force along with the teams and customer/business
8. Conducted reviews and retrospectives at regular intervals
9. Refined the plan and activities
10. Validated the Objectives, OKRs, and Return on Investment (ROI)

While working on this change management program, I realized that all these activities are human-centric as people will adapt to the change – new ways of working. So, I thought of applying design thinking which can help to empathize with people to understand them in a better way. (Design thinking is the conception of innovative ideas, products, experiences, and services to improve the lives of the end users, whether they’re customers, company stakeholders, or employees.)

Design thinking covers the “what” part, like co-creation, innovative ideas, and creativity.Designing a solution during change management deals with the “how” part, which is the implementation or adaption of those ideas. If we combine these two, we will achieve human centricity, discovering new ways of working and collaborating at various levels to transform the organization.

So the top success contributors for change management are:

1. Active and visible executive sponsorship
2. Frequent and open communication about the change
3. Structured change management approach
4. Dedicated Change Management Task Force and funding
5. Employee engagement and active participation

Key takeaways

1. The three essential requirements for an organization’s survival – cost optimization, the caliber of its output, and accelerated time to market.
2. Organizations have no option other than adapting to change to fulfill theseneeds. Change in terms of adapting new ways of working/processes, tools/ technologies, and skills – building the change management competency.
3. Choosing the proper framework is the key to successful organizational change management. This is crucial as  it is people who drive the change.
4. Change management and design thinking are human-centric approaches; together, they can make a difference in people’s lives.
5. Change management Success Mantra- “Convey/answer ‘What is in it for me?’ to relevant stakeholders like CXOs, top management, middle and bottom level teams, and even customers.”