How to drive change in a small organisation

Hi

This was an article that I wrote a few years ago about how I manged change in our business. I hope it might help. 

https://www.hrzone.com/lead/change/how-do-you-make-change-the-new-normal

Regards

Martin

Hi there,

Change is about psychology and how to best tap into the needs and wants of others, before you do it. Most of us don't like change, unless we are the people leading it. I think the first thing to do is highlight the need for change. If I were you, that's where I would start. I also wouldn't be too precious about "owning" it. The best way people will change is if they believe it was their idea. So while you may introduce it, let others take it forward. 

Any more questions, give me a shout!

Gill

Hi, 

For me, change management is an umbrella term for a set of activities that lead towards something new. These activities quite often include:

• project management
• planning
• stakeholder management
• internal communication
• financial management
• vendor management

I would definitely advise you to start thinking about those skills in your current team/organisation.

What you need to prepare is:

1. a Change Curve;
2. a distribution of the current people in the organisation into 3 categories: early adopters, followers and keepers of the tradition;
3. a define scope and budget (if any);
4. a plan (quite often a Gantt chart with milestones does a good job);
5. governance and reporting requirements.

The important highlights are:

1. Engage the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). The reason be is that these are the people who know the organisation and the specifics. Here you might consider that it is better the SMEs to be fully dedicated to the change program for a year and not to be dragged in their daily operations. You need to work hand in hand with them and openly discuss the change initiatives.

2. Distribute the people from the company into 3 groups- early adopters, followers and the keepers of the tradition. Usually in a company the majority of people are the followers and they can make or break the change. 

3. Decide on the way of reporting. Quite often a good form in a change program is the Steering Committee. This is really useful place for the sponsor and the change team to discuss progress and issues.

4. Prepare a communication plan; it might be even one person dedicated only to the change communication.

5. Get early agreement on the benefits of the change. They usually fall in 3 categories:

• increased revenue
• reduced costs
• risk and compliance, legislation (all the non-business value add necessities)

Always use the stress test 'so what?' for qualifying a benefit when in doubt.

6. Create a detailed plan for the entire change program (I would say a Gantt chart) and use it to define the key milestones.

Cheers, 

A.