The Essential Role of Change Management in Transforming Organizations

What is Change Management?

Change management is the coordinated approach to helping people within an organization to move from the current state to a desired future state through a structured framework of preparation, implementation, and follow-though.

The practice of change management is derived from theories from the fields of psychology, behavioural science, engineering, and systems thinking, focusing on how to help people engage with, adopt, and sustain change over the long term.

Change management can support a range of changes within business operations, including:

• Technology upgrades

• Restructuring teams or departments

• Product Offering  

• Economic Change

• Entering new markets

Change is inevitable and can enable businesses to scale, remain viable, and stay competitive. Historically, organizations have often measured the success of change initiatives against delivery schedules, budgets, technical specifications, and business objectives, while minimizing the human side of change.  Overlooking this component can contribute to failed initiatives or suboptimal outcomes.

Types of Organizational Changes:

Adaptive Changes are typically small, incremental changes adopted to address needs that evolve over time they are often based on the current state.  These changes are generally minor adjustments to improve the existing way of working.  Example: Upgrading a computer operating system eg. New version of windows.

Transformational Changes are of a larger scale and scope, they often involve concurrent shifts in future state with numerous elements of the business including changes in mission and strategy, company or team structure, or processes. Transformational changes typically require a substantial amount of time and effort to execute.  Example:  A traditional brick and mortar store implementing of an ecommerce site to grow their business.

Regardless of the type of change, it is important that each change initiative must be tailored to the unique challenges, deliverables and people involved, as no two scenarios are completely the same.

Failure to proactively manage the people side of change can negatively affect morale and productivity and ultimately hinder an organization's ability to achieve its objectives.

As humans, we are generally reluctant to change due to uncertainty, insecurity, or just being comfortable with the status quo.  Change is often perceived as “bad” or “negative” and therefore is often considered as a threating force.  By utilizing a clear structured Change Management framework, organizations can proactively manage and alter the negative preconceptions, to ensure their employees or other parties impacted by change will experience a positive change journey resulting in sustained long term adoption.

Change management is an essential component in today’s agile business operations.  According to Harvard Business Review* about three-quarters of change efforts either fail to deliver the anticipated benefits or are abandoned entirely.”

* Harvard Business Review December 2017

As illustrated above, unstructured, or traditional approaches to Change initiatives often fail or do not achieve full the intended outcome as they do not fully embrace the importance of human acceptance of the change. Thereby the approach to change must be intentional, strategic, and well-coordinated with the understanding that the human component is a critical element in a successful change initiative.  From the start of a change initiative, a full and thoughtful assessment of how the change may impact your teams should be undertaken to proactively identify any potential resistance. This will allow you to customize your communications addressing resistance before it arises.  Communication must start as early as possible in the process and be conveyed clearly, concisely with transparency so that employees are engaged and understand how the change will affect them and their responsibilities. The communication should be two way and include active listening to avoid misunderstanding and to address the discomforts that come with change, such as fear and anxiety.  

In summation, Change Management is a framework for managing the people side of change. In todays tumultuous and ever-changing environment, business must adjust priorities, pivot, and adopt new processes more frequently than ever before.  These adjustments can be highly disruptive to people within an organization, therefore any business that wants to be nimble and able to make changes quickly and successfully should adopt change management as a core competency within their organization.

By Christen Nitsa

Published on July 30th 2024

Sources:  Dr. Linda Ackerman Anderson, “5 Reasons Why Organizational Change Fails”, Steve Strauss, “Top 7 Reasons why Organizational Change Fails”, Bill Hogg, “5 Reasons Most Change Management Initiatives Fail”, Johnston, Lefort, Tesvic, “Secrets of Successful Change Implementation”, Team Clarizen, “3 Reasons for Change Management Project Failure”

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