Change - Change & Co.

Ask yourself:

Do people in your organisation have skill sets in dealing with the impacts of change?
Are you concerned you don’t have the internal capacity to a deliver a culture of change or a specific change project?
Is sustained change too difficult to manage, negativity too difficult to contain?
Do you feel overwhelmed at the prospect of planning and implementing the change strategy your business needs?
Are you always reliant on external consultants to help you deliver change?

We all have a natural propensity to resist change, we don’t like to be outside our comfort zone, so whenever change is mooted the uncertainty it brings is palpable and worry sets in.

Often the resistance is a result of self-doubt or simply fear of the unknown
Individuals may not have understood the change strategy or objectives
Communications has led to confusion
People are unaware of all the facts
People haven’t grasped how the changes will impact them personally

Whilst all these behaviours are natural enough they can engender a negative approach that will hinder the whole process and cause massive upheaval, often unnecessarily.

So how do we avoid confusion and break down resistance to changes?

Building a change capability

Building an internal change capability offers a more sustainable result for cultural change, change programmes or initiatives than always using external resources or “just not bothering with the soft stuff”. It allows members of the team to take ownership of the change and not feel as if it is thrust upon them. They are able to build relationships rather than have an ‘outsider’ bulldoze them into a new way of working. Their confidence grows, as does their capacity to deal with change.

We will help you set up practical processes, identify the best approach and give the leaders and their team, the mentoring to help them
manage the changes and adapt quickly and effectively to the changing demands. Helping to eradicate the uncertainty surrounding change in their own lives and at work.

Our goal as a consultancy is to make ourselves not needed, our passion is to pass on our experience in building your capability.

Here’s a presentation

Change Interventions

Sometimes a single leadership workshop or presentation is sufficient to brief changes, on other occasions a sustainable, longer term development programme is required to help people manage the changes.
By arming your organisation with the best change management tools and techniques, tailor made specifically to the needs of your organisation, the process can run smoothly and the preset objectives achieved
to the benefit of the business and all concerned.

Typically this would include;

The change vision
Stakeholder analysis
Heat maps (illustration where the pressure is being put on certain departments or people)
Assessing change readiness (simple to complex surveys or group workshops)
Facilitation insights for your business change strategy
Support change leaders and leadership teams
Help build the capability of your own people in change skills

Change Tools and Approaches

Champions of Change

‘Agents of Change’ or engaged members of your workforce at various levels are key in implementing your change strategy. These individuals who have a voice within their work community and the energy to want to make a difference. With some formal training and subsequent support, these individuals can test responses to the change and feedback in a proactive and engaging manner. Their positivity affects everyone involved and gives
confidence to both the individuals themselves and the teams they lead.

Change Strategy

There needs to be a compelling reason for the change that everyone can understand. Starting with a vision for the change and a future state. It will require business cases, plans, tools and methodologies but the key to success is a leader who really believes in the change and has the energy and the vision to drive it through.
It requires early and positive engagement with people owning the change and building relationships with those who will be impacted by it. A new system or structure is ineffective without the people working in a new and improved way. These are the people the project trusts and identifies and then engages with to draw on their expertise to build a solution. It is the people who make the changes work.

Creating a Change Strategy

Define what it is the organisation wants to achieve
Growth cost efficient cost reduction better customer service better culture
Define how you would make that reason compelling for everybody in the organisation
What enablers do you have or need to support the change?
IT systems Process improvement key performance indicators the organisations structure governance and decision making ,
Accountability, accommodate the culture of the organisation
Take stock, what is your is your change capability and legacy?
Enable the people that will make the changes
Strong sponsor project team, skilled internal resources supported by the champions of change!
Create the priorities, financials, timescales in a strong but realistic plan that has the ability to be flexible
Create the engagement in the organisation with the change and what it will require
Implement the changes, develop the skills of people and their awareness to the change before it happens
Sustain the change and keep up the urgency also celebrate the successes
Don’t lose focus or be swayed by something not important on the priority list
Set up ways to communicate and promote the progress and benefits if change occurs
Acknowledge difficulties or delays
Reward people as they demonstrate the new behaviours

Reasons For Change

Ask yourself:

We all have a natural propensity to resist change, we don’t like to be outside our comfort zone, so whenever change is mooted the uncertainty it brings is palpable and worry sets in.

So how do we avoid confusion and break down resistance to changes?

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