by Elisa Monetti, Senior Training Specialist in Excellence Education

Imagine walking down a familiar street, one you’ve walked dozens of times, and suddenly finding a new sign on a shop, never seen before…

“But since when did that change?”

Episodes like this are part of the experience of most of us and help us to focus on a fundamental concept for today’s corporate world: the only truly certain thing in our future is change.

The concept of change management has always existed, it has accompanied humanity through all its greatest revolutions from the invention of writing to that of computers and artificial intelligence. Never before have these changes become more frequent and strategic than in recent years.

How can organizations navigate change positively?

Let’s see together some practical advice, four cardinal points useful for good navigation of change management.

 1.     Identify the problem

Any change arises from an initial situation which, both for extrinsic and internal reasons, manifests a problem.

Identifying this problem is the first and fundamental task of change management: any solution that has not dedicated sufficient time to researching the problems is, in all likelihood, ineffective.

The first answer is rarely the correct one and is almost never the complete one.

To correctly identify a problem, in-depth research is essential, based on dialogue and listening to people and analysis of processes.

In the world of organizations, problems are very often branched and connected to each other: it is essential to create the most precise map possible. Only based on this can navigation towards the solution be effective.

2.     Base change on people before technology

“Technological solutions” nowadays flourish and multiply with unprecedented rapidity. These are certainly useful tools, irreplaceable in many cases, but we must not delude ourselves that they alone can drive change.

Organizations are first and foremost a group of people who use technology to achieve objectives.

In the same way, the change management process must first and foremost be done by people, even with all the technological supports useful to the cause.

Basing change on people means first of all defining roles: who is at the helm, who is at the oars, who is at the sails, and so on.

Roles which, however, are essential to remain in dialogue with each other: dialogue and listening remain, as in the problem identification phase, the first parameters for monitoring the route.

3.     Define behaviors

It sometimes happens that a clear vision of the problem combined with a 360° involvement of resources does not lead to the desired changes.

The reason for this deviation can be identified in a lack of behavioral mapping. What, at a leadership level, is a change management action plan, in the daily life of the organization must translate into concrete actions which, if not clearly defined, risk not being unanimous and thus diluting their impact.
It is good for leadership to break down its action plan into concrete “what”, “how” and “why”. Only in this way will everyone’s effort row in the same direction and allow us to achieve success sooner and better.

4.     Embracing resistance

However, the fact that change is inevitable does not always make it desirable.

As human beings we often feel an instinctive resistance to situations when they change: adaptation costs effort, courage and personal commitment.

Resistance to change is natural, even more so when it is imposed from outside.

To prevent this from paralyzing the process and blocking evolution, two factors are fundamental:

–        clearly explain the action plan towards the change, dispelling any doubts about its necessity and its potential impact

–        keep everyone involved to ensure that those who have resistance are not isolated, but on the contrary, can become an active part of evolution.

In the world of organizations, change is certain, what is not always certain is the success of the change management strategies implemented to overcome it, but it remains true that guided by an effective compass the journey towards the goal will be safer.