Changes are unavoidable and most of the time it can’t be controlled. But what can be controlled though is how you react to it and work through the entire change management process.
Change management is a broader concept that many businesses fail to understand, and implement. Thus, it doesn’t turn out well for the enterprise and they suffer failure.
As per the Mckinsey reports,
Only 30% of the businesses change management strategy turns out to be a success.
The businesses around the world are undergoing change at a dynamic pace.
Trends in the technology, customer requirements, market regulations and not to mention the unprecedented crisis such as COVID-19 can act as blocks in the pathway or even shut the entire road.
Despite all the hassle, the odds of success for change management strategy can still be improved significantly with the help of right techniques.
Also, by modifying the ability of the employees to react against changes and eliminating their resistance to change management.
As you will go through the course of this article, you will learn every step towards the change management process and the right way for implementing it for your business.
Here’s what you will learn from this article:
- What is change management?
- Why is change management important?
- What are the reasons for change management failure?
- Steps towards successful change management process
- What are the benefits of change management?
So, without any further adieu, let’s quickly start with the change management process.
What is change management?
It is a structured approach designed specifically for dealing with the changes occurring in an enterprise and optimizing it for driving high optimal results.
The changes could be related to technological development, consumer behaviour, sales, business acquisitions or the whole organizational restructuring in general.
A successful change management process always starts with the inspection of what needs to be changed in an organization and then building a well structured plan around that change for achieving a better outcome.
Of course, it includes various other processes as well but the basic outline remains the same.
Why is change management important?
Every business experiences a number of changes in its operations over the course of years in the market.
The change can be associated with various aspects of the industry or the enterprise itself. But whatever the change might be, it’s necessary to manage it with a unified and powerful plan.
Businesses failing to create a proper growth plan for the transformation of a specific section of the enterprise or the entire organization, do not get the result of the change as desired and the situation can get even worse over time.
According to the reports of statist,
As per march 2019 reports 6,21,966 registered companies in India were closed or not functioning anymore.
Change management helps to ease out the process of the enterprise transformation profoundly.
More precisely, it helps to simplify the change among the employees due to the transformation where resistance to change management is higher.
Reasons for failure in change management
There can be many reasons as to why an enterprise change management strategy fails but the following are the most common ones:
- Inefficient planning towards the change
Many enterprises decide to implement the solution right away to their business without considering the planning part of it.
This method sets the pathway for failure right from the start.
Important factors necessary for the change must be structured prior to the execution of the transformation process.
- Inefficient communication of the process well to the team
Once you have strategized the plan for the change the next step is to form a team and communicate the proceeding plan with them.
As your team will be going forward with the implementation plan, it’s very much necessary for them to know about it in detail and well before executing it.
- Ignoring the future aspect of change
Business leaders often forget to take in note the future aspect of change such as the need of resources in the long run.
Implementing the change management strategy in place is not the end but the start of the journey where you need to test, refine and reinforce your strategy for better performance.
- Not training the team leaders for change
The most crucial part of any business change is not the technical aspect of it. But the people that are involved in the change.
As the employees are the ones that will be maintaining and sustaining the entire process, it’s necessary to give them profound training.
7 Steps towards a successful change management process
A structured outline that you need to follow for a seamless and successful change management process. They are as follows:
Step 1:- Setting your goals and objectives
To achieve a precise enterprise structure, you need to have a well defined business goal and objective.
Many businesses often jump on to the “how” part of the change without considering the “what” part of it, necessary for implementing the solution.
This contains both the designing as well the technical part of change around the enterprise.
Before you even start planning the change structure of your organization,
It is necessary to determine what result you expect from the change and also in how much time you expect it to be completed.
Step 2:- Strategic planning
Once you have the answer to your “what” part, the next step is to proceed with the “how“ part i.e strategic planning of the change management process.
In this step, you need to collect every resource associated with the change and arrange it in a streamlined manner for effortless execution.
Step 3:- Communicating the change management process to the team
The employees are the ones that form the base layers of every step of the change management process. Thus they need to be well acquainted with every minute details of the change strategy.
Many businesses fail to communicate the process details to their teams and thus face resistance in the change management process.
The best way to do that is arranging an official meeting with your teams and informing them about the change that will be occurring, their roles in the change process and also what it will be like to be executing it in practice.
Step 4:- Determining the flaws that can affect your enterprise in future
Although you have successfully implemented your change strategy to the enterprise, it needs to be inspected for determining the flaws that are not prevalent now but can cause issues in the future.
Identify what can go wrong at every phase of the change process and how it can be rectified for smooth enterprise functioning.
This is a major part of the planning process responsible for creating a smooth business ecosystem.
Step 5:- Invest in employees training
Employees are the most affected when a change is executed in the enterprise. Thus they need to be trained for every change associated with both technical and process.
This will create a positive impact on the team efficiency that will help you increase the business productivity of the enterprise to an optimal level.
Step 6:- Monitor and measure the process
Now, you have completed the execution part of the change successfully, it’s important that you monitor and measure the performance for consistent delivery.
Also, define a significant performance measuring metrics to ensure that you are moving forward in the right direction.
Step 7:- Infuse strong leadership to your enterprise culture
This is a continuous process that you need to implement and maintain throughout your enterprise functional ecosystem.
The need for promoting collaborative work culture is more than needed considering the present competitive business environment.
Business leaders must inspire teams and train them to work with strategic thinking for building a flexible streamline process.
This will help your enterprise to manage any change or transformation with confidence and to tackle every difficulty irrespective of the size.
Benefits of executing a successful change management process
- Creates the right perception of change among employees, eliminating their resistance to change management.
- Aligns resources with business for fast-tracking the process.
- Promotes effective communication throughout the enterprise.
- Boosts employees morale and increases productivity.
- Development of new opportunities.
- Reduces the processing cost to a great extent.
The above mentioned are few of the many benefits that can help you manage the business change effectively.
Transformation is the crucial part of every business pathway or to be precise is the metric that helps in determining the direction of business workflow.
With a proper change management strategy, as mentioned above, you can simplify business transition processes seamlessly and accelerate growth effectively.
We hope the above steps for the change management process will help your business to streamline every transition or transformation effortlessly.
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