The case for
change management:
The individual is the unit of change
In Prosci’s 2007 and 2009 benchmarking studies, the top trend
identified by study participants was a greater recognition of
the need for and value of change management. While some find
themselves in a situation where change management is being
requested, many other practitioners are still working diligently
to make a compelling case
for
the need for change management. For these practitioners, Prosci
is releasing a five part series on the case for change
management. Learn how to effectively
“sell” change management to project leaders and
executives in your organization by
directly connecting change management to project and
organizational outcomes.
This is the second tutorial of the series. The focus of this
tutorial is showing how change ultimately occurs at the
individual level - that the individual
is the unit of change. For changes to be successful
individuals must make their own successful transitions, and
change management provides a structured approach for encouraging
those individual changes.
The reality of change
In the end, change ultimately comes to life one individual at
a time. Organizational change starts with an issue or opportunity
that can come from a variety of places - strategic direction,
annual planning, competitive landscape, customer demands,
internal performance metrics, regulation, legislation, etc.
Those issues or opportunities are then transformed into some
sort of structured project or initiative - which can be
accompanied by any number of tools like a charter, a schedule, a
work breakdown structure, a budget, resource requirements, a timeline, etc. The project or
initiative then cascades down to individual processes and behaviors -
how specific individuals do their job and how the project or
initiative impacts how they do their job. This is how change happens - issue or
opportunity -> project or initiative -> individual processes and
behaviors. And
ultimately it is individuals doing
their jobs differently that results in a successful and
sustainable change.
Examples in organizations
Think about the following three simple scenarios:
| Scenario |
Value if everyone
adopts |
Value if no one adopts |
| Process change that impacts a workgroup
of 15 |
$125,000 |
$0 |
| Technology change that impacts 150
employees |
$780,000 |
$0 |
| Transformational initiative that impacts
1,500 employees |
$1,655,000 |
$0 |
While the numbers in the second column are hypothetical, the
numbers in the last column are not. A new process creates no
improvement unless individuals follow the process. Likewise, a
new tool or system delivers no value if individuals do not use
the tool or system. Change ultimately comes to life through
individuals doing their jobs differently.
Examples in society
The Keep America Beautiful campaign in the United States is a
great example of how an organizational change (in this case, the
"organization" is the population in general) ultimately comes to
life through individual behaviors. The movement started in 1953
in response to the growing litter problem facing the country and
its new highway system. The focus of the effort was to encourage
people to dispose of their garbage properly, reducing the amount
of litter in the environment. Over the last six decades, Keep
America Beautiful has included public service announcements,
media campaigns, and programs delivered in schools to educate
children about littering and how to prevent it.
The program has been successful at reducing the amount of
litter present along the roads and in public areas in the United
States. But the "change" - or read another way, the
reduction of litter - ultimately happened
one person at a time. The success of the change was tied to each
individual who made the decision to find a garbage can instead
of tossing litter out the car window. The unit of change was the
individual - and the success of the program was ultimately tied
directly to individuals changing their behaviors. This is not too different from organizational projects and
initiatives.
The unit of change is the individual
In the end, the unit of change in an organization is the
individual. You can think about each person whose job is
impacted by a project or initiative as a building block. The
change is only successful if each building block is placed in
the wall. Even if a project impacts thousands or
tens-of-thousands of employees, success is based on the
cumulative result of those thousands or tens-of-thousands of
employees doing their jobs differently. For each block that is
not added, the change is weakened and results and outcomes are
compromised.
The role of change management
This perspective - that change occurs at the individual level
and success depends on each employee adopting the change - may make managing change seem unwieldy and
complicated. However, decades of research and development in the
field of change management have resulted in proven methodologies
and approaches for creating large scale change by encouraging
and enabling individual transitions.
Prosci's approach provides methodologies and tools for both
individual change management and organizational change
management. On the individual front, Prosci's ADKAR® Model
describes the five building blocks of successful change as
Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement™ - when
an individual has each of these elements they can make a change
successfully. In order to create these numerous individual
changes, organizational change management provides a structured
process and toolset. Prosci's organizational change management
methodology follows a three-phase process of Preparing for
change, Managing change and Reinforcing change™ -
which allows practitioners to create scaled, customized plans
for moving individuals through the
ADKAR® steps.
The essence of change management is encouraging and enabling
the individual transitions resulting from a project or an
initiative. Because change happens one person at a time, change
management provides a critical component for achieving project
outcomes and results. At the most basic level, if individuals
don't adopt and embrace a change, results will not be achieved.
But the more effectively we can enable and encourage those
individual transitions using change management, the more
successful our projects and initiatives will be.
Coming up: the correlation data, the three
"people side" ROI factors, and the costs and risks of poorly
managing change
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