Roles in change management

The ultimate goal of change management is to engage employees and encourage their adoption of a new way of doing their jobs. Whether it is a process, system, job role or organizational structure change (or all of the above), a project is only successful if individual employees change their daily behaviors and workflows. This is the essence of change management - mobilizing the individual change necessary for an initiative to be successful and deliver value to the organization.

There is a whole system of people in the organization responsible for supporting employees in making this transition. From the highest levels of leadership to front-line supervisors, effectively managing change requires a system of actors all moving in unison and fulfilling their particular role based on their unique relationship to the change at hand. This tutorial examines the five key change management roles: 

• Change management resource/team

• Executives and senior managers

• Middle managers and supervisors

• Project team

• Project support functions

Employees can successfully make their own personal transition when each of these actors fulfills their role in the context of a holistic, planned change management approach.

Why the role is important:

• Having dedicated resources for change management was #4 on the list of overall greatest contributors to success in the 2007 benchmarking study.
• There is a growing body of data that shows a correlation between the success of a change initiative and how well the people side was managed.
• Without dedicated resources, change management activities will not be completed. Unfortunately, when budgets and schedules are squeezed, change management is pushed to the bottom of the priority list if there are not dedicated resources.

What the role requires: 

1. Apply a structured change management methodology - instead of operating in an ad hoc manner, approach change management with purpose and intent (read more about Prosci's methodology)
2. Formulate strategy - evaluate how big the change is and who will be impacted to develop a customized strategy
3. Develop plans - based on the strategy work, create a customized set of plans for moving people forward - including a communication plan, a sponsor roadmap, a coaching plan, a training plan and a resistance management plan (read more about the five plans in Prosci's methodology)
4. Support other ‘doers’ - the change management resource is the coach and the go-to person for the other roles described below

Why the role is important:

• In the 2007 benchmarking study, the active and visible participation of the senior leader was cited as the #1 contributor to success. And in the 2005 study it was also #1. And in the 2003, 2000 and 1998 studies it was #1 on the list. Bottom line - their role is crucial to success.
• Employees want to see and hear the executive's commitment to the change. The authority they provide carries over to other change management actors.
• Effective sponsorship is a predictor of success or failure on the project.

What the role requires: 

1. Participate actively and visibly throughout the project - there are three key words here: active, visible and throughout - sponsors must be present and seen by employees
2. Build a coalition of sponsorship and manage resistance - the sponsorship coalition describes the group of managers and leaders who will take the change back to their department, division, workgroup, etc - the primary sponsor must build and maintain a healthy coalition
3. Communicate directly with employees - employees want to hear the business reasons for the change from someone at the top

* From the 2007 benchmarking study.

Why the role is important:

• Managers and supervisors are close to the action - it is their teams who must change how they do their jobs for the change to be successful.
• In any organization there are two types of change constantly happening: 1) top-down initiatives launched by senior leaders (macro-changes) and 2) responses to daily demands from customers and suppliers (micro-changes). Managers and supervisors support their employees through both types of changes.
• The attitude and actions of a manager will show up in his or her people - whether the attitude is one of support or one of opposition.

What the role requires: 

Based on the 2007 benchmarking study, the five roles of managers and supervisors during change are:

1. Communicator - employees prefer to hear messages about how the change directly impacts them and their team from the person they report to
2. Advocate - if the manager opposes the change, chances are that his or her people will as well - in many cases, the opposite is also true
3. Coach - helping employees through their own personal transitions is the essence of change coaching by middle managers and supervisors
4. Liaison - the role of liaison involves interacting with the project team, taking direction and providing feedback
5. Resistance manager - research shows that the best intervention to mitigate resistance comes from the employee's immediate supervisor

* Important note - managers and supervisors cannot effectively lead their people through change if they themselves are not on board. More on this important note coming in future tutorials in this series.

Why the role is important:

• The project team is tasked with managing the technical side of the change. In the end, they are the people who design how things will be done differently than they are today.
• Without direction and management, the technical side of the project will not move forward.
• The project team also plays a role in ensuring that change management is part of the project - by providing the appropriate resources (budget and personnel) and time.
• Change management will be most effective when it is pulled in at the launch of the project.

What the role requires: 

1. Design the actual change - create the solution that ultimately impacts how people do their jobs
2. Manage the ‘technical side’ - with tools like the charter, business case, schedule, resources, work breakdown structure, budget, etc.
3. Engage with CM team/resource - work with the change management resource or team to ensure that the technical-side and the people-side of the change progress in unison, provide timely project information
4. Integrate CM plans into project plan - begin change management at the start of the project and weave the change management strategy and plans into the technical-side plans to create one seamless project plan

Why the role is important:

• Project support functions bring expertise in a particular area - these groups include: Human Resources staff, Organization Development staff, Training specialists, Communication specialists, solution specific Subject Matter Experts, etc.
• In some cases, one of these project support functions might operate as the change management team or resource.

What the role requires: 

1. Experience and expertise - project support functions bring experience on past changes that can be applied to the current change
2. Knowledge - each of these groups have specialized knowledge that can help the project team and the change management resource or team
3. Tools - each of the areas bring specific tools that support change management activities - just be sure the tools align with change management best practices

Employee-facing roles:

• One-to-one interactions
• One-to-many interactions
   
• Why are these the employee-facing roles?
  Because these are the people that employees want to hear from!

Enabling roles:

• Create and implement the plans that are executed by the employee-facing roles within the business
   
• Why are these not employee-facing roles?
  Because employees don't know who they are and don't really care what they have to say!