Change Management

Change can occur at all levels of an organisation, from individual teams or whole departments to the entire organisation. Changes may be small or large. Types of change need to be managed differently.

Change may be caused by internal or external forces. External (or market led) forces include customer demand, changes made by a competitor, new technology or political situations.

Internal change forces may come from management strategy, employee suggestions and continuous improvement strategies. Internal change will often aim to reduce costs, improve quality to add value or increase productivity.

It is not unusual for team leaders to have multiple things changing at the same time. Change is all around because…

• Budgets change
• People change
• Expectations change
• Visions change
• Customers change
• Products change
• Regulations change
• Bosses’ minds change

New organisational strategies (or structures and policies) may assist with the change process.

To assess your readiness for change, you need to think about where you, your team and the company is now. This will then assist with the planning of the change.

For successful change to occur, there needs to be a climate of trust between the managers and the employees. In an organisation where there is faith in the management, employees will expect:

• Effective and sensible planning
• Effective decision making
• Regular and complete communication

The easiest approach to understanding change as a process is to break change down into ‘states’, the three states of change provide a framework that helps us see ‘where we are, where we are going and how to get there’.

• Current State (now/before change)
• Transition State (during change)
• Future State (after change)

As change is an ongoing process and for organisations to manage change effectively, they need to identify and communicate the business reasons for implementing the change. To do this, most organisations use a process or model to assist them with planning and implementing the change.

Lewin’s Change Model

Kurt Lewin formulated a change model that has been used by many organisations. He identified three steps in the change process:

1. Unfreeze the organisation
   • Identify what needs to change
   • Gain support from management.
   • Create the need for change
   • Manage and understand concerns
2. Make the changes
   • Communicate often
   • Remove rumours
   • Empower action and ownership
   • Involve people in the process
   • Implement the changes
3. Refreeze the organisation
   • Set the change into the culture of the organisation
   • Develop ways to sustain the change
   • Provide support and training
   • Celebrate success

Kotter’s 8 steps for Leading Change

John Kotter is Professor of Leadership at Harvard Business School and is regarded as an authority on leadership and change. Through many years of observing leaders and organisations he identified common factors which were successful and developed the 8 Steps for Leading Change framework. (Bedard, 2023)

1. Create a sense of urgency: Inspire people to act with passion and purpose to achieve a bold, aspirational opportunity. Build momentum that excites people to pursue a clear, compelling vision of the future together.
2. Build a Guiding Coalition: Create a coalition of people committed to guide, co-ordinate and communicate the activities needed for change.
3. Form a Strategic Vision: Get buy-in for the changes by clarifying how the future will be different from the past and how that future can become a reality through initiatives linked to the vision.
4. Enlist a Volunteer Army: Large-scale change is only possible when lots of people are behind a common opportunity. On an individual level, people must actively want to contribute to change and collectively they must unite in pursuing the goal together.
5. Enable Action by Removing Barriers: Clear the way for progress and innovation by removing obstacles which slow things down. Work more nimbly across silos to generate impact quicker.
6. Generate Short-Term Wins: Early and frequent small wins should be collected and communicated to track progress and energise persistence.
7. Sustain Acceleration: Press harder after the first success. Increasing credibility can improve systems, structures and policies. Be relentless with initiating change after change until the vision is a reality.
8. Institute Change: Articulate the connections between new behaviours and organisational success and make sure they continue until they become habit. Evaluate systems and processes to ensure management practices reinforce the new behaviours, mindsets and ways of working.

Download this exercise file to complete the table of comparison for The Prosci ADKAR Model.

Reasons for Resistance to Change

Leaders are often faced with resistance to change which can be manifested in different ways by different people. This could be in the form of foot-dragging or inertia to sabotage to actual rebellion. Leaders need to understand the common and predictable sources of change-resistance to be able to form strategies to counter them (Kanter, 2018).

1. Loss of Control: Change can make people feel as if they have lost control over their territory and have lost some autonomy.
2. Excess Uncertainty: “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t”. People often prefer to remain in a non-optimal situation with which they are familiar and comfortable than head towards an unknown.
3. Sudden Imposition of Change: Suddenly imposed decisions which don’t give people any time to get used to the idea or to prepare for the consequences are often resisted. It is preferable to plant the seeds of ideas of change than to plan change in secret and impose it without warning.
4. Everything Seems Different: People are creatures of habit and routines become automatic. Too many changes can become distracting or confusing. Leaders should try to keep things familiar as much as possible by not introducing unnecessary differences to familiar practices. Stay focused on the central change and avoid change for its own sake.
5. Loss of Face: People associated with previous practices which are being changed may feel a personal connection with the old ways and may become defensive about their involvement with superseded or failed methods. Leaders can help people maintain their professional dignity by honouring or celebrating the successes of the previous ways whilst stressing that the world is constantly changing.
6. Competency Concerns: Change can be resisted when people feel intimidated by the skills needed for it and are worried their own skills may become obsolete. Leaders should provide abundant education, training and upskilling to ease those fears and turn change into a positive career-enhancing opportunity for employees.
7. More Work: Change usually means more work. Those involved with designing and implementing change are often overloaded during the implementation period, needing to resolve unforeseen problems. Leaders should acknowledge the commitment made by people, perhaps with rewards or extra perks for those involved.
8. Ripple Effects: Like ripples in a pond, changes impact other departments, customers and others who may feel as if change is impacting them even though they are not involved. Leaders should engage with a wide range of stakeholders to ensure all affected parties understand the changes and the reasons for them.
9. Past Resentments: Change may bring about different working relationships and could reopen old wounds from past conflicts. Leaders should consider ways to heal the past before moving into the future.
10. Sometimes the Threat is Real: Change is scary because it can be painful. New technologies can replace old ones and jobs can be lost. Leaders should be honest, transparent, fast and fair with painful consequences of change. One big layoff is preferable to successive waves of cuts.

Managing Resistance to Change

Five Strategies for Managing Resistance to Change 

1. Do Change Management Right the First Time.

   A leader can minimise the natural resistance to change most people exhibit by applying effective change management processes from the beginning of an initiative. Actions for minimising resistance to change include:

   • Using a structured change management approach from the initiation of the project
   • Engaging senior leaders as “active and visible sponsors” of the change
   • Recruiting support from people managers as advocates for the change
   • Communicating the need for change, its impacts on individuals, and the benefits to employees (i.e., answering "What's in it for me?")

2. Expect Resistance to Change

   Even if the benefits of change are obvious to the initiators, employees will often show resistance to change (see previous section for reasons resistance to change should be expected). The status quo is a comfortable place and moving into the unknown can create anxiety, fear and stress.

   When preparing for resistance to change, leaders should spend time to identify where and how the resistance may be seen and address it upfront. Being proactive about where resistance may be encountered and what objections may be raised will be necessary to mitigate their effect.

3. Formally Manage Resistance to Change

   Resistance prevention enables leaders to address and mitigate resistance early and should be incorporated into change management approaches for projects and initiatives. (Kempton, 2024b)

   

   Change Management Approach
   Prepare Approach	Manage Change	Review Performance
   Define Success What are we trying to achieve	Plan and Act What will we do to prepare, equip and support people?	Review Performance Now, where are we? Are we done yet?
   Define Impact Who has to do their jobs differently and how?	Track Performance How are we doing?	Activate Sustainment What is needed to ensure the change sticks?
   Define Approach What will it take to achieve success?	Adapt Actions What adjustments do we need to make?	Transfer Ownership Who will assume ownership and sustain outcomes?

4. Identify the Root Causes of Resistance to Change

   Focusing on the symptoms whilst ignoring the causes of resistance to change is not effective. Whilst these symptoms (complaining, inertia, refusing to adopt new methods) may be easy to spot but just addressing these will not fix the problem. Effective change-resistance management needs to identify the root causes to understand why people may be resistant.

   Some of the root causes of change resistance include:

   • Lack of awareness of why the change was being made
   • Impact on current job role
   • Fear rooted in uncertainty due to past failed changes
   • Lack of visible support from management and lack of trust in management and leadership
   • Lack of inclusion in the change

   It should be remembered that resistance to change is at heart an individual phenomenon and should be addressed at the individual level. The best way to identify the root cause of resistance is through a personal conversation between a resistant employee and their people manager.

5. Engage the “Right” Resistance Managers

   Getting the leaders with the appropriate skills in managing change resistance is important. This may not be the change management team or even the HR team but could involve senior leaders and people managers.

   Senior Leaders: Employees look to senior leaders for guidance and judge plans for change based on the commitment senior leadership shows to the changes and the reasons for the changes. Senior leaders need to provide a compelling case for the need for change and show their total commitment to the changes.

   People Managers: This group is key to managing change resistance because they are closest to the employees who ultimately adopt and use the change in their daily jobs. The attitude of people managers to change will reflect on the attitudes of the employees they manage: a resistant or ambivalent manager will have a negative effect whereas an openly supportive people manager is likely to see this attitude mirrored in employees. (Kempton, 2024b)

To develop a plan, we need some knowledge of the current situation and of the desired outcome of the change. Therefore, a plan is like a map that takes us from where we are now to where we want to be.

Use the following table as a guide to note your responses to the question.

The Training Plan

Staff may need new skills and competencies when adopting a change to their day-to-day work. A training plan must be effectively planned based on where staff are in the change process. A training plan that occurs right when staff learn about a change—when they are in the Current State—will not be effective. Training should be delivered after staff have already started to move out of the Current State and into the Transition State.

The Communications Plan

the content of an effective communications plan matches where staff are in the process of change. Early communication should focus on explaining why the Current State is not working and must be changed. Communications later in the change process can focus on details and the eventual results the change is aiming for.

The Team Leader's Role in Change

The Team Leader's role in change depends, to a large extent, on the source and impact of the change. If the change was initiated from within your team and only affects your team, you will have a major role to play. If the change was initiated at senior management level and affects the whole company, your role will focus on communication, participation and support.

There are the change agents — the leaders of the business who are instigating the change — and the change recipients — the employees who have change delivered to them.

Team Leaders do not always fit neatly into either of these roles. They are not just change agents or change recipients but, in some ways, play both roles. They must receive, understand, accept, and then implement the change: they’re the change communicator, advocate, mediator, coach and implementor turning the strategic into reality.

This can be a challenging job. The team leader sits between their own emotional response to change and their responsibility to support the team through those same changes. So really, they are impacted by change twice as much.

To keep their team motivated, they must find a way to put their own concerns to one side, to take ownership for changes that they don’t necessarily understand or agree with, to gain buy in from the team.

Why is organisational change so hard?

People like stability: when our routine changes, it leads to anxiety or fear. This happens even when we are setting our own personal change - new habits are hard!

As Team Leader, what change directive do you need to implement with your team? Write down your thoughts.

How do YOU feel?

To help others, we must help ourselves, so as team leader you need to address your own resistance before supporting your team through change: to motivate others, you must first be able to sustain your own levels of motivation.

You can get on board with the change, or not. Symptoms of someone choosing not to support the change (or resisting) would be:

• Carrying on with processes and tasks in the old way.
• Talking about the change negatively at any opportunity.
• Refusing to acknowledge the communicated benefits of the change.
• Distancing themselves from the responsibility of implementing and championing the change.

The consequences of this type of response will be really damaging if that person is in a position of authority. Their direct reports will most likely copy their example/behaviour and the change will fail.

Acceptance

The first step is to accept and embrace the change. To do this, we must accept that we won’t always understand or agree with the changes — and we have the right to challenge them constructively — but trust that the answers will come.

Self-awareness is the first step to emotional control, once you have awareness, you can create behavioural and thinking strategies to manage your emotions. Try to draw on the strengths you have shown in other areas of your life when you have experienced change. How have you managed to successfully negotiate a change in your life?”

Employing strategies to sustain positivity through the many challenges will enable us to support our team in maintaining their motivation.  

Planning and Communication

To keep motivation and performance high during times of change, keep in mind the following principles when planning and communicating around change:

• Communication: Circulate information regarding the change in a timely and frequent manner.
• Honesty: Be transparent about what you can and cannot disclose. Offer feedback up and down the line.
• Self-reflection: Remain aware of your emotional state and encourage your people to do the same.
• Community: Rally your troops and become collectively greater than the sum of your parts.
• Ownership: Champion the change, own your actions and create a culture of accountability.

As a Team Leader, you are required to communicate the purpose and extent of the change to your team. You will also need to provide support to your team during the change, as it is possible that they may fear and resist the change at various stages of the process.

When planning what needs to be communicated, first consider which of the following elements within the department will be impacted:

Don’t forget to consider what skills your team currently possess and whether any training will be required. To obtain the information you require to communicate effectively to your team, you should be involved in specially targeted briefing sessions and written directives from management. These should provide the information you need and give you an opportunity to ask questions and consider team reactions.

Personality Preferences

Experts on change agree that while there is no “one-style-fits-all," each of us has an approach or style that we are more comfortable with when it comes to change.

Personality and behavioural style tools can assist in understanding the way different people might react to change and help to manage change in a more productive way. It can help a team leader to:

• approach everyone on the team as an individual, knowing the ways they like to approach change.
• get a better understanding of feelings and anxieties associated with the change.
• understand some of the natural conflicts that arise between team members based on the changes they are facing.
• get better at responding, helping to enhance collaboration and even encourage the team to innovate.

Self-awareness is an essential skill for any leader. When working with a team, you not only have to understand yourself, but also be able to adapt your style when necessary to get the best results with your group. Tools like this can be quite effective in helping us as leaders to assess our teams and what the best approaches might be to maximise our change-opportunities.

You’ve reached the end of the learning material for this topic. Let’s recap the key points, and then make sure you’ve completed all the forum discussions and activities.

• Change management is the process of guiding teams and organisations through changes which may be caused by internal or external forces
• Organisations can adopt strategies, structures and policies to assist with the change process.
• Successful change requires:
  • Effective and sensible planning
  • Effective decision making
  • Regular and complete communication
• There are three states of change during the process:
  • Current state
  • Transition state
  • Future stat
• Change models:
  • Lewin’s Change Model
  • Kotter’s 8 Steps for Leading Change
  • ADKAR Change Management Model
• Resistance to change is common and can be shown as foot-dragging or even sabotage and rebellion. Understanding how change affects people is an important part of managing the process.
• Planning for change
• Change response for different personality types