Emergence of change management
From the "why change management" tutorial series

Change management today

In the last five years, change management has emerged as a requirement of major projects and organizational transformation efforts. Today, change management has become a recognized business discipline required for changes to be successful; it has become a requirement on many of the biggest changes facing organization's today. Change management can be found in virtually all industries – public and private. At our certification programs, Prosci has seen participants from very large to very small organizations. The projects that are brought to the program range from a strategy deployment across a 60,000 person multi-national organization to process changes impacting a workgroup of 12. Practitioners come with a wide variety of backgrounds – from Human Resource professionals and Organization Development consultants to certified project managers and team members to Industrial Engineers and Organizational Psychologists. This diverse audience indicates that across organizations and job functions, successfully leading change has become a critical component of organizational success.

In the 2007 and 2009 benchmarking studies, participants commented on the most prevalent trends they’ve seen in change management. The table below shows the top 10 trends in 2009 and the top seven trends in 2007.

By a wide margin, the top trend cited in both studies was a greater recognition of the need for change management. Change management has moved from a “nice to have” to a “must have” for major organizational change. Participants also saw a greater use of formal methodologies and tools – moving from an ad hoc approach in the past to a structured approach supporting individuals through organizational change. Finally, over the last several years the idea that “leading change” is a necessary personal competency for senior leaders, managers and supervisors throughout the organization has emerged. All in all, change management in 2009 is more structured and draws upon a more skilled workforce than ever before.

So, what prompted the emergence of change management over the last decade?

Reasons for the emergence of change management

While there are numerous reasons why change management has emerged over the last decade, this tutorial highlights four key reasons for the emergence of change management:

1. New value systems
2. Legacy of past failures
3. Velocity of change
4. Structure and formalization of change management

1. New value systems

In his work Stewardship, Peter Block describes a shift occurring in many organizations. The old values of predictability, control and consistency have been replaced by values of empowerment, ownership and accountability. Countless organizational improvement systems have driven decision making and authority farther out in the organization. And, while these shifts have improved the performance of many organizations, they have altered how change must be managed.

Under the old value system, organizations incented and rewarded employees for following protocol. When a change was introduced, values and systems were aligned so employees were more likely to simply make the change. When asked to jump, employees responded “how high?” - because that was what they were rewarded for doing. However, with the empowerment of the workforce, the response has changed from "how high?" to “why should I jump?” - because that is the behavior that is reinforced. Employees have been told that they own their work processes and outputs which has yielded positive results; but it should not come as a surprise that this ownership sometimes conflicts with top-down, mandated change. In today's workplace with higher levels of accountability and ownership at the employee level, project teams and senior leaders must be much more active in building a compelling case for change, in engaging employees and in effectively addressing resistance with the empowered workforce. This new value system has driven the need for better, more robust and more formal approaches to managing the people side of change.

2. Legacy of past failures

Over the last several decades, millions and perhaps billions of dollars were spent on projects that simply did not deliver the intended results. Take for instance a major technology system deployment in the late 1990s. Tremendous energy and resources were invested in developing the “right” solution and technology, but little attention was paid to the impact on employees’ work flow and behaviors. When the technology finally reached the “go live” point, employees were still left in the dark about why the change was happening and what it meant to their work. The project team assumed that since it had the “right” solution, people would simply get on board. The stark reality was, however, that people resisted the change and found work arounds, diminishing the value the organization reaped from the change. This was an all-too-common story as millions of dollars were invested in new technologies and systems that no one used. Organizations increasingly recognized that this investment was being lost – not only failing to deliver the intended benefit but also representing a significant waste of capital.

Almost every organization and employee can look back on a failed project that resulted from ignoring the people side of change. Over the last several years, savvy leaders began to appreciate that the people side of change was as important, or more important, than getting the technical side of change correct. These leaders began looking for more structured approaches for managing the “soft” side of change. Change management emerged as a solution to one of the biggest sources of project failure - not bringing the people along with the change.

3. Velocity of change

While it may be a cliché, change has become the only true constant. The world is changing more now than it ever has in the past. Change is happening faster. Changes are bigger. Change is happening more frequently. And, for most organizations, the changes that are being undertaken today are more critical than changes in the past. The velocity of change is not expected to slow down. Participants in the 2009 benchmarking study commented on the amount of change they expected in the next two years - over three quarters expected more change in the next two years, with a full 40% saying they expected the amount of change to increase significantly.

With so much change going on around us - in our communities, on the planet and in our workplaces - there is an even greater pressure to effectively navigate change. Change management provides frameworks, tips, tools, tangible processes and suggestions for making changes more successful. The data shows that the more effectively change management is applied, the more likely an initiative is to meet its objectives. The velocity of change in most organizations today has created a significant demand for good change management.

4. Structure and formalization of change management

While the first three reasons are all somewhat external to the discipline, the final reason for the emergence of change management has to do with developments within the discipline. Change management itself has changed. Over the course of the last decade, a tremendous amount of structure and rigor has emerged in what is called "change management." Readiness assessments have replaced guesswork. Strategies are developed and customized for people side issues, right along side strategies for technical issues. The tools used by change management practitioners have moved out of simple communication and training to a holistic set of targeted tools aimed at each of the employee-facing roles in the organization. Reinforcement and measurement systems have been established to cement the change once the project is declared over.

In addition, processes have emerged for applying change management. One comment Prosci often hears from technical folks when they leave a certification program is: "I was surprised that there was a repeatable process for the people side of change." As change management has become more structured, utilizing processes and validated methodologies, it has become more accepted by the population of project managers who support organizational initiatives. Change management has moved from "touchy-feely" concepts to tangible processes and tools.

Takeaways

Research data from the last two benchmarking studies confirm that the appreciation of change management and the role it plays in project success are on the rise. As several participants in the 2009 study commented: “Growing recognition of importance to successful ROI.”  “Appreciate of CM as a necessary component of project success - not just warm, fuzzy fluff.”  “Acknowledgement that the investment in change mgmt on the front end of a project will pay off in the end.” Change management demand is on the rise, and the "change management professional" is becoming an indispensible resource for major organizational change. The four reasons for change management's emergence cited in this tutorial are:

1. Encouraging employees to take ownership and accountability of their work requires a new approach to managing change.

2. Previous initiatives that left the people behind failed to deliver results and cost organizations millions of dollars - change management has emerged as a solution for realizing benefits by bringing people along with a solution.

3. With the ever growing amount of change faced by organizations today, there is an even greater pressure to be successful. Being successful, given this tremendous amount of change, requires effective management of the people side of change.

4. By moving out of concepts and into tangible processes and tools, change management has earned its place as a necessary business discipline.

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