| Prosci and the Change Management Learning
Center have released a new series of tutorials titled "Back to Basics in
CM." This tutorial in the 'back to the basics' series
looks at the three critical roles managers and supervisors play in effectively
managing change.
Context
Prosci's 3-phase change management process is used by project teams
and change practitioners to build the
plans needed to manage the people side of change. While managers and
supervisors may not play a formal role in developing the change
management approach, they are critical in making organizational changes
successful. This tutorial looks at the three roles managers and
supervisors play in managing change.
| Below are the five change management plans developed
in a formal change management process. Which change
management plans involve managers and supervisors? |
|
þ
Communication |
|
o
Sponsorship |
|
þ Coaching |
|
o Training |
|
þ
Resistance management |
Managers and supervisors as communicators
Isn't the communication group responsible for communicating with the
organization? Well, the answer is yes and no. Your organization may have
a communication group that creates much of the format, content and copy
that goes into corporate communications. However, when employees are
hearing about a change that is taking place, they
prefer two senders of
messages (key research finding from Prosci's 2005 Best Practices in Change Management
benchmarking report). First, they want to hear the business messages
about the change (why) from executives and senior leaders. Second, they want
to hear about how the change impacts them (WIIFM) and their group from their immediate supervisor.
Managers and supervisors communicate in a number of different ways and
in a number of different directions. They communicate messages down from
the top of the organization to employees and provide information and
data back up through the organization about how employees are reacting
to the change.
When preparing managers and supervisors to be communicators, be sure
they have access to the information they need about the change and the
business. Communication is the most effective when employees are hearing
aligned messages from both their supervisors and the leaders of the
organization.
Managers and supervisors as coaches
Coaching, from the change management perspective, is the support a
supervisor provides to their direct reports. The importance of coaching
is based on the relationship and trust between an employee and their
direct supervisor. No one else in the organization has the type of
influence that an immediate supervisor can have.
In the Prosci change management methodology, there are two key
coaching roles:
Group coaching activities are used to provide information about the
change, teach employees the ADKAR model and facilitate an ADKAR
exercise. Depending on the change and your organization, you may want to
use several group coaching activities throughout the project's
lifecycle. Group coaching sessions help build a common vision and
commitment from the group and give employees a chance to share their
concerns in an open environment.
Individual coaching activities are conducted in a one-on-one setting.
Individual coaching is often iterative, where managers and supervisors
use multiple sessions to have conversations to identify where an
employee is struggling with the change and how to help them overcome
barriers to change.
Managers and supervisors as resistance
managers
When you introduce organizational change, you are bound to run up
against resistance. People are naturally fearful of the unknown and comfortable with the way things are today. In the formal change
management process, change managers proactively identify what resistance
to the initiative might look like and where it is likely to come from.
Although the change management plan does include some strategies to
prevent or mitigate this resistance, managers and supervisors will play
a key role in identifying and managing resistance when organizational
changes are implemented. To be effective in dealing with resistance,
managers and supervisors must know how to 1) identify the root cause of
resistance, and 2) engage with employees to overcome the resistance.
To identify the root cause of resistance,
use the ADKAR model. Since ADKAR describes the stages of successful
change, failed change is often attributable to one of the five elements.
Managers and supervisors can use ADKAR in formal group coaching
exercises, individual coaching sessions and in informal
conversations with employees to understand what is causing the
resistance.
Second, overcoming resistance requires the knowledge, tools and
skills to actively deal with resistance once the root cause is
identified. While the entire topic of managing resistance cannot be
addressed in this short tutorial, several important points can be
addressed. First, resistance must be viewed not only in relation to the
actual change initiative, but also related to the
personal context (what is happening in the person's life
that may be contributing to the resistance) and the
organizational context (how past
changes and the relationship between the employee and the organization
impact resistance). Next, managers and supervisors must have concrete steps
they can use to deal with resistance, like those presented in Prosci's
Top 10 steps to managing resistance (tutorial coming soon).
Preparing managers and supervisors
Remember that managers and supervisors are also experiencing change
when you introduce a new project or initiative. Before managers and
supervisors can be effective coaches, they first must be on board and
supportive of the initiative. Spend time building an
Awareness of why
the change is taking place and a Desire
to support the change before
asking managers and supervisors to take on the roles above. If you
experience resistance from managers, be sure to utilize best practices and a process
for understanding and addressing the root cause of the resistance.
Remember that managers are employees first and supervisors second. You
must manage change with these managers before you can expect them to
manage change with their employees.
A second key to remember is that managers and supervisors may not
have ever been trained on their role in supporting change management
efforts. There may be a significant Knowledge
and Ability gap when it
comes to the roles above. Many times, an individual that does a great
job managing day-to-day work can struggle when asked to support change -
mainly because no one has showed them how to do it and what it looks
like. Provide managers and supervisors with the training, education, job
aides and ongoing support to ensure your 'great managers' can become
'great change managers'.
|
