Why do we need a change management?

What is a change management? In 2017 Robert H. Schaffer published an article with a significant title: “All management is change management”. He wrote: “Managers start to view change as an extraordinary event that must be dealt with using change management techniques and special skills (...) Leaders should view change not as an occasional disruptor but as the very essence of the management job”.

Hard to disagree. But what about techniques and skills Robert mentioned?

“Change management is the discipline that guides how we prepare, equip and support individuals to successfully adopt change in order to drive organizational success and outcomes. Organizations do not change, people do” – says Prosci, change management focused organization, for more than 20 years providing research and best practices from the field.

Steps seems to be simple: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement (ADKAR ® model) but as always the devil is in the details. It’s a question of execution. What Prosci found over the years: “project with excellent change management produce as much as 6 times better outcomes than those with poor change management”.

So in your next initiative – except of having sponsor with the budget and project manager running technical side think about OCM – organizational change manager, who will manage the people side of change.

And what is a change management for you?

Author: Paweł Dudek

Sources:

1. https://hbr.org/2017/10/all-management-is-change-management

2. https://www.prosci.com/​