Being a consulting partner for clients is a privilege. It allows you to experience situations firsthand. As a founder of Interloop (Zoho Consulting Partner), I have worked with 400+ clients on multiple projects, helping them bring changes in Sales and HR functions. We have helped them to automate, improve and sustain these changes. I am sharing my experience from these projects. Much of this is around Change Management. So here they are…..
What is Change Management?
One of my friends says that change management is about managing change in an organization effectively and efficiently at the individual level. For any organization, change is the only way to survive and succeed. With current dynamics, it has never been more important.
Change is a culmination of thoughts and actions. Once thoughts start meeting actions, the result of this synergy is CHANGE.
Leading questions are — Do you know that you need “this change”? What happens if you stop changing? What if you stop acting on the change?
Why does it fail?
Despite knowing the importance, most of these projects fail miserably or at best succeed average. But, why?
There are two questions built into this why. The first question is — When did it start? The second is — Why did it fail?
Timing and intent is the topic of another piece. Let me share what I learnt from these failures or average successes.
The single biggest reason is that organizations fail to own the change. THEY FAIL to ACT on the CHANGE.
There could be many reasons, but they may be clubbed together as follows:
Organisations/People failed to change in time — The biggest mistake is to wait for the time when you are forced to change. Why do so? The organizational leaders must ensure that changes are identified and are carried at the right time and continuously.
Reach of Change Initiative — Any initiative is as good as it is executed. This has been spoken, written and shared millionth times. But do one really follows it? Check if your last mile person knows what his/her role is in this initiative. If they do not know, it is almost sure that your initiative is looking to fail.
Leadership Commitment — Any change, be it in Sales, HR or Finance, is a huge challenge for leadership. Leaders have to display behaviour which is in line with the change. Most leadership teams think that this is a task, a tool meant for people in the hierarchy down the line. They think that they are immune to the changes. WAKE UP — if you cannot do it, nobody will do it. Period. If you cannot change, who will for you?
No Ownership of Change — One has engaged the best consulting partner, best automation vendor, still, everything falls flat. WHY? There is a very simple reason for that — One did not fix the ownership of the change.
Deadlines for Change Related Tasks – Change is not a journey. It is all about you play the game all along. Did you break the change management into smaller tasks? did you set the deadlines for those tasks? If not, you have set the stage for failure. During this journey, milestones should be set in advance. In a way, one must move backwards to move forward.
Setting up for A Successful Change Management (Ensuring Growth)
You can do the following to ensure that your initiatives yield the results:
Find your “Why” for change — Why do you want to change? You have to find the reason(s). These reasons may be industry related or stage related. If you know WHY, what and how will follow.
Communication Channels — Change is big. It is a threat to the most, while an opportunity to some. Prepare a communication plan which involves multiple channels across the organization. “Well Communicated is half-sold”. It is very important that everyone, irrespective of hierarchy, understands and accepts the ownership of their roles.
Leadership Display — Change management is about bringing in culture, setting it right and ensuring that it is forward in nature. Only Leadership has this advantage in the organization because everyone looks up to them. Walk the talk. If you talk about innovation as a theme, display the acceptance or appreciation if someone comes up with an idea.
Set up Ownership — It is a must-have if you want to ensure that things are changed. Identify and establish smaller tasks that help the change initiative. Now set the respective owners for these tasks. It is easier to track and also efficient to move ahead.
One can talk about scientific approaches or global frameworks for change management, however, they are as good as your strong basic understanding of the steps involved.
Submitted by: Saurabh Chauhan
You can connect with me on Linkedin. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/thesaurabhchauhan/).
Interloop Consulting LLP is People and Productvitiy Consulting Firm. We work with you to optimise the people performance and processes to achieve desired growth. Interloop has technology partnership with Zoho and Newgen.
