Pathway for Successful Organizational Change

It may involve a few people or an entire organization. It might be a minor adjustment to respond to a change in customer support. Or it could be a full-scale “bet the business” initiative to leapfrog your competitors.

No matter what the scale, there are five distinct phases you can use to approach an organizational change initiative:

• Formulating and Refining the Change
• Create a Change Plan
• Provide Examples of the Change
• Implementation and Support
• Reinforce and Adjust

 

Here are the principles of each of these phases.

Phase one focuses on Formulating and Refining the Change. An organizational change can be based on a simple idea like “change our product support to please a larger segment of the marketplace.” This is more of a slogan than a genuine change initiative; it’s an objective rather than an approach.

Refining the nature of the change within the organization is critical for a successful change initiative. So, the idea I just shared might become “change our product support by providing more flexibility to our marketing staff to vary pricing, educating our help desk staff more thoroughly, and creating a new customer support representative role dedicated to each of our largest clients.”

Next is phase two: Create a Change Plan. The example I’ve shared represents an organizational change to how customers are supported, providing a major managerial and cultural shift in how they help clients. Each approach selected—such as creating a new customer support role for larger clients—requires a plan.

That plan focuses on recruiting, educating, and introducing this role to clients. You must also plot how the individuals in the role should interact with staff and management.

Careful and thorough planning with all staff is required to succeed in such a change journey. Also, demonstrating examples of new activities the role might create can help explain the change to your staff, which brings me to the next phase.

The third phase is to Provide Examples of the Change. Your organization is more likely to buy into a change if it sees leaders embracing and displaying it.

In my example, help desk management team members should handle customer calls and demonstrate the change in approach to the staff.

This actively displays greater flexibility and gives staff members “permission” to increase their level of customer support.

Early examples might not always work perfectly, but showing the desire to change and the flexibility to learn from initial attempts will likely inspire the desired behaviors in your staff.

Phase four is Implementation and Support. The moment of truth in any initiative, especially a change initiative, is implementing the change. This is when emotions are the highest—you’ll see excitement, apprehension, and everything in between.

In this phase, it’s vital that you monitor your change outcomes and provide ongoing support to team members who may be struggling with new approaches to their jobs. Gentle persistence and support are the keys to helping your staff through this period.

Finally, phase five is when you Reinforce and Adjust. Although your changes might yield improvements, permanent organizational change requires constant care and adjustment. Continue to talk with your staff. Find out what’s working and what could be improved.

So that’s it—the phases for change initiatives. Follow these diligently, and you’ll likely see your change improvements soar!

This article is based on my and Christina Charenkova’s LinkedIn Learning course entitled AI-Powered Agile: Strategies for Modern Project Managers