Change Management Frameworks

Change Management Frameworks: A Structured Approach For Effective Organizational Change

The world around us changes with time—advancement in technology, availability of resources, economic challenges, or socio-political changes all contribute to the need for organizations to adapt and change. Knowing and using established change management frameworks help deal with such challenges effectively. 

An organization adapts itself by undergoing organizational change to keep up with these changes, including adjusting its culture or structure to ensure alignment with new realities. 

Organizational change involves management, products, business process, infrastructure, and hierarchies. The individuals, teams, and the organization will require significant help, support, preparation, and training during the process. Change Management Frameworks can provide you with a map and guide you in ensuring changes in appropriate areas.

A structured change management effort ensures the effectiveness of the change management initiative. This article will describe Change Management and the different Change Management Frameworks available today in detail.

What is Change Management? 

Change Management (CM) is defined as the methods and approaches that a company uses to implement changes in its internal and external processes, core values, structure, management, software, and tools. 

Employees feel fear, discomfort, and hesitation when faced with new challenges. People are resistant to change because they are afraid to come out of their comfort zones. Change management addresses these issues and supports the individuals and teams to accept and adapt to the changes. 

Change management strategies are based on psychological theories, behavioral science, engineering, management, and systems thinking. The strategies provide the necessary resources and direction for organizational change. 

What are the 5 critical elements of successful change management? 

There are many things to be considered during change management. However, to ensure a successful organizational change, you need to focus on these five essential elements. 

Planning

Any project, big or small, needs a proper planning before you begin. Planning involves four essential stages: 

  • Define the stakeholders involved – your employees, leaders, teams, departments, management, clients, and sponsors. 
  • Assess the readiness level of these stakeholders.
  • Consider the risks, assumptions, dependencies, costs, return on investment, resistance, advantages, disadvantages, and cultural issues. 
  • Decide on the right tools, change management framework, leaders, trainers, and other resources.

Communication

You cannot implement any change without getting the stakeholders on board. And how do you do that? By effective communication. Explain to your stakeholders the reasons to change and the benefits of successful implementation. After the why, explain how, when, where and other details of the change. Define clear goals and objectives for better understanding. Be honest and transparent with the risks and disadvantages.

Training

Organizational change involves changes in tools, mode of operation, systems, and management processes. This change requires your employees to learn new tools and develop a new set of skills. Devise a proper training system. They need the necessary tools and data access. Support, help, and give them enough time to adapt to the new changes.

Resistance Management

Even with all the communication, planning, and training, there will be some amount of resistance. Because resistance to change is fundamental to human nature. For effective resistance management, anticipate them during the planning stage and devise your strategies accordingly. 

To manage resistance, you need to acknowledge them first. Then, listen to your employees, understand their fears and problems, and address their issues. Provide one-on-one training and counseling if required. Be open to feedback and suggestions.

Leadership

You and your managers should have strong leadership skills. Bring the right people on board to lead the change. A good leader monitors the whole management process and fine-tunes the implementation whenever required. In addition, the leader opens and maintains proper communication channels with the subordinates and manages any resistance from them.

What is a change management framework? 

You already know how important it is to manage an organizational change. But don’t you think you need some model or framework to follow?

A Change Management Framework is a model that gives you a systematic approach to managing changes within an organization. It considers all elements, including planning, communication, training, resistance management, leadership, common problems, and issues. Such frameworks also provide steps, practices, and techniques to implement and manage the changes.

What are the different change management frameworks/models? 

There are many different change management frameworks or models that the leading experts in the industry have developed. Below are the seven popular models that have been tried, tested, and proven successful.

John Kotter’s 8-Step Model

Dr. John Kotter, a leadership professor at Harvard Business School, invented an 8-step process that focuses on establishing a sense of urgency to motivate people to accept the change. This popular model has a top-down approach. Below are the eight steps:

  • Create a Sense of Urgency – Create a sense of urgency among your employees to motivate and engage them in the change process.
  • Form a Powerful Coalition – Create a powerful team of skilled change leaders who will drive the change. 
  • Create a Strategic Vision for Change – Have a measurable, motivating, actionable, and realistic vision that considers employee’s creativity and emotions.
  • Communicate the Vision – Frequently communicate the vision with the people involved with the change implementation.
  • Enable Action by Removing Obstacles – Support and help your people by solving problems and roadblocks. 
  • Generate Short-Term Wins – Focus on short-term goals to keep your employees motivated. Celebrate those wins.
  • Sustain Acceleration – Build on the small wins to accelerate and sustain the progress.
  • Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture – Encourage your employees to implement the changes into their work culture. 

McKinsey’s 7S Framework

Thomas J Peters and Robert H Waterman created McKinsey’s 7S framework to facilitate organizational change. This theory focuses on the internal factors and their interconnection instead of the structure. In addition, this model emphasizes how these factors impact the organization’s ability to change.

  • Strategy – The step-by-step procedure of your change management plan.
  • Structure – How your organization’s structure is divided into departments and units.
  • System – The processes, tools, and technologies involved in your employees’ daily tasks and activities.
  • Shared Values – The core values and work ethics of your organization.
  • Style – The leadership style, culture, and behavior of your organization.
  • Staff – Your employees, the workforce, and their nature.
  • Skills – The individual skills and capabilities of your employees and the organization as a whole.

While Structure, Strategy, and Systems are considered complicated factors, Skills, Style, Staff, and Shared values are considered soft factors.

Prosci ADKAR Model

While the above two models focus on organizational change, the Prosci ADKAR model focus on individual change. After all, it is the individuals who make up an organization. 

The ADKAR model is a bottom-up approach that emphasizes what the individuals at all levels in an organization should do. The creator of this model, Jeff Hatt, has given five building blocks that individuals need to achieve. ADKAR is the acronym for the same.

  • Awareness of the need and requirement for the change.
  • Desire to participate in and support the change.
  • Knowledge of what to do and how to implement the change.
  • Ability to apply the necessary skills to implement the change as required.
  • Reinforcement to sustain the results of the change.

Kurt Lewin’s Change Management Model

Kurt Lewin, and physicist and a social scientist, developed a simple 3-step process in the 1940s. 

  • Unfreeze: Here, you analyze your current structure and processes to decide what needs to be changed. You unfreeze the existing system and prepare your employees for the change. This step involves effective communication and resistance management.
  • Change: As the name suggests, you implement the necessary changes. This step involves training your employees, establishing proper communication, solving problems, and providing all the required support.
  • Refreeze: The last step is where you ensure that the implemented change is sustained. Your employees accept and adapt to the new changes. The new methods and techniques become part of your organization’s work culture.

The KĂĽbler-Ross Model

The KĂĽbler-Ross Change Curve are the five stages of grief proposed by psychiatrist Elisabeth KĂĽbler-Ross. This change curve applies to change management as the five stages as the employees feel the same emotions while adapting to organizational change.

  • Denial: Your employees don’t accept the change.
  • Anger: Employees become angry after realizing that the change is happening.
  • Bargaining: Your employees try to avoid the situation by coming up with various reasons.
  • Depression: When they cannot get out of the situation, your employees get demotivated and depressed.
  • Acceptance: Your employees accept the change when they realize that the change is happening no matter what.

Satir Change Management Model

Like the previous one, Satir’s change management model focuses on how people react to change. But here, the stages are based on the employee performances and reactions during the change.

  • Late Status Quo – The existing mode of operation brings high productivity before you introduce the change. 
  • Resistance – There is a dip in productivity due to the immediate reaction and resistance after introducing the change.
  • Chaos – The change process has begun, and your employees are confused with the new mode of operation. Productivity has hit the lowest level. 
  • Integration – Your employees start to adjust to the changes, and their productivity starts to increase.
  • New Status Quo – The new standard sets in, and the productivity is back to normal, possibly higher when the change is complete.

William Bridges’ Transition Model

William Bridge’s transition model focuses on the employees’ transition during the change. While change is something that happens to the people, a transition is something that happens with the people – in their minds. This model has three stages.

  • Ending, losing, and letting go – Your employees resist the change due to fear and uncertainty. They need all the support and reassurance.
  • The neutral zone – The change process has already begun, and your employees are adjusting, learning new things, and are yet to accept the change fully. 
  • The new beginning – You employees understand and embrace the change. They are excited about the new normal. 

Conclusion 

Each organization has a different infrastructure, mode of operation, employee skillset, goals, and visions. Therefore, the result one expects after undergoing an organizational change differs from company to company. Choosing an appropriate model from these change management frameworks will provide you with a roadmap to transform your organization. Learning about these change management frameworks can also be useful in your digital transformation efforts.

Whatever your expectations are, don’t forget to perform the necessary analysis and proper planning before deciding on a change management framework. And keep your employee’s best interests at heart along with the organization’s goals because it is your employees who make up your organization. 

Featured Image: Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash

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