Managing Change Or Change Managing You
Past two years have flown by indicating the simple and essential things in life we should be grateful about. Be it from a brand perspective or consumer perspective, apart from all other things, it is important as to how we perceive, react or adapt to any change. Every organization must recognize the embedded tension & paradoxes to a specific decision. Should it be digitization or humanization or both juxtaposed properly.
Managing change is rather a systematic approach for organizational or departmental transitions so as to look at the core benefit of its business and people.
My submission is the pedestal on which everything rests is the culture that we build. Post that there needs to be a data driven approach. For any change to happen, it is important to be ending the existing practice before new beginnings. One non- negotiable is a transparent visionary who goes beyond day to day leadership and inducing a desire in the its people to support the change by showing why is it important, why to begin now and how will be make lives richer.
The starting point is awareness of the need for a change management – be it corporate branding, digital transformation or an agile experiment for a Minimum Viable Product. The method options are multiple – be it Six Sigma, ADKAR model, McKinsey’s 7s framework.
In this piece, my aim is to focus on joining 5 R’s, that focuses on the key asset of any organization – its people. When I looked at it closely, it’s the people who are the DNA for change execution. Top management will need to not only to express and explain but to ‘inspire’ the change. I don’t really believe in the word ‘Future Proof’, though yes, the intent matters for a futuristic approach which plays in strengthening the reason for a change management initiation.
Relevancy - Why should we be doing this
This is perhaps the most important part as here we define think through and get all stakeholders on one page on the need for a change along with why is it relevant. This will help build on the case and further consensus across board including communication all employees on the same. It is important that everyone ‘understands’ and ‘shares’ the vision.
Roadmap - Where do we want to reach
Any change management also needs to have defined timelines including execution and driving beta. Hence, being agreeing on the vision of where will this specific change process lead us in the next say 1 to 5 years will be the force to reckon with.
Relay or Rally - If not now, when
Imperative to ask this question in almost every project. Why now? The timing matters deeply as that acts as a catalyst to execution. This also needs seasoned hands on with predictive models on being in tandem with the apt time for initiating a change management process. Relay enables bringing in the required radiance in the process as involving as many people as possible working in cohorts creates a sense of deeper belonging and accountability, responsibility and a contributing hand in the vision. Hence the relay.
Resources – Recognizing we have tools & people that we need to enable the change
This is where there could be an unseen leash that we may choose to ignore or not see, however, it is salient to take stock of what we have, what investments in terms of time, people and cost are realistically involved depending on the scale of the project
Reinforcement – Keeping a watch and control over how the progress of a specific change management shapes up, is the key to understand when to accelerate or apply that change to any other department within the organization. Hence , Once new processes are in place, new software is installed, or the new organizational chart is official, reinforce the change and celebrate success during and after the transformation so as to build and maintain the energy and zest.
These simplistically complex R’s (oxymoron indeed) of Relevancy, Roadmap, Relay, Resources and Reinforcement according to me are the stepping stones to think through about a change management matrix. Simple because these all start with R, complex will be only as complex as to how we think about it as a process and execution. So, if something needs to change, it can start with both a top down or a bottom up approach. Just needs listening, agility and action at all levels.
