There’s plenty of research on how change efforts usually fail – despite time, energy and a lot of money being thrown at them. Sometimes, it’s because there is no change plan attached to the project. Sometimes, it is just bad implementation. And sometimes people just run out of steam; bits of the change might get implemented but it quickly reverts.
There’s also lots of research that will tell you that a communication plan is not the same as a change plan. Sure, communication is part of a change process, but it is just that – a part. There is so much more to it than that.
The Prosci model of ADKAR – Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement (or my revised version of this) is a good starting point in thinking about change.
A change plan can be as simple or sophisticated as the organisation needs. It’s less important the specifics of what model you use, and more important that you have a well thought out plan and that you stick to it (bearing in mind there will always be times to deviate from the plan – and being able to adapt is part of effective change management too).
Working with a client this morning, we summarised just two elements to their plan:
- The “nuts and bolts” -ie – what are they trying to change and what is the impact on the system, people and key stakeholders
- The “engagement piece” – ie – how do they bring their people along with them (both communicating the change and giving them the opportunity to be actively involved) and how to use the organisation’s key influencers.
Now obviously there is plenty of work behind each of these elements, and indeed a sophisticated model sits behind both.
But sometimes, just breaking the change down to its most basic and then starting from there to build it back up is the way to go. Sometimes I think we get overwhelmed by the scale of change, and so don’t do anything. Or there’s paralysis by analysis. The data and information gets overwhelming that we don’t do anything.
Often, as in all aspects of life, simple works best. What do you think? Have we got too clever, too complicated? And is it working for us?
