Every year in Change Management forums someone asks: “What are the big, new things this year that Change Management needs to focus on?”
Yes, it is a fun lap around the water cooler and, yes, we need to know ‘what change’ we are applying ourselves to … and, yes, different types of change need different CM approaches and treatment (maybe there’s a meaty discussion to be had here but that’s not usually where the discussion goes).
Consider … Change Management is a capability not one annual race. The competitive differentiator is the ability to regularly and successfully win concurrent triathlon-relay races.
So someone says “What’s the big technology this year?” Is it AI? Is it wearable tech? News flash … there will always be something, and probably that thing did not manifest in the last year … it has been evolving and developing critical mass for years. What about your change capability? Have you been developing that for years?
The difference between “the change” and “changing”
I find it’s super important to acknowledge that “the change” is different and separate from “how people navigate change”. And to understand how the organization we are working in is using CM today.
Both “the change” and “changing” are critical and CM has a role to play in both (depending on the change maturity of the organization) but the role is very different.
In “the change” (the strategy or plan) it’s all about (i) sense making to enable adoption. Our role is not about identifying or defining the change – it’s about (ii) understanding the vision and (iii) communicating the vision and value.
In “changing” it’s about bringing stakeholders through implementation and enabling adoption of new ways of working to drive value.
In the most advanced organizations, and on the best days, CM actually threads earlier and further … to engage stakeholders in the development of the strategy and to support implementation / adoption all the way through value realization.
“Changing” is the thing
I read something from Gartner a week ago that illuminates the axiom “change is constant” … paraphrased: “If you have 10 or more concurrent Enterprise changes then change IS your employee experience.”
This notion, and as every “top changes” report reminds us every year, Change Agility is the new organizational super power.
As I see it, this on-going evolution needs to ‘marry’ several domains: Change Management and Organization Development, and Enterprise Architecture and “Project” Delivery. This changes the game – from static unfreeze- change – re-freeze (yes Lewin) to on-going, overlapping and accelerated change … but let’s be clear, for many established organizations this is far deeper than implementing ‘Agile’ and ‘Product teams’ (where CM and OD is often entirely omitted).
Challenge the logic
So want to test drive the logic?
How does reading a World Economic Forum report ‘up your change game’? Have a read and ask yourself “How can I use this year’s changes to radically evolve my Change Management capabilities for next year, and the year after?” … “Learn more from our latest Emerging Technologies report” https://ow.ly/FoeE50QHI0H