The Simple Answer: Organizational Change Models

Now that you’ve invested a lot into your projects, you are ready to recognize the return on investment as quickly and as fully as possible. We get it. Throughout our process improvement engagement, we planned for organizational change management. Our approach is anchored in Kotter’s Theory and ADKAR, resulting in added value and success from the individual to the macro level.

Organizational Management Planning

At the high level, these approaches offer you a checklist for your organizational change management planning. This gives you a tangible place to start in enabling your organization towards lasting change.

Your plan should include:

• Create and share a vision
• Create momentum for change
• Develop, grow, and sustain the momentum
• Maintain the results of the change

Model #1: Kotter’s Theory

Kotter’s Theory is an 8-step process that was developed through Dr. Kotter’s observations of 100 organizations engaged in a process of change. This step-by-step approach assures that there is buy-in from your team, organization, subject matter experts, and stakeholders.

So what are the 8 steps?

1. Create a sense of urgency – evaluate and share the benefits, as well as the need for change with your organization
2. Build a guiding coalition – utilize trusted, enthusiastic, individuals of your organization to champion the change
3. Form a strategic vision and initiatives – developing a vision through a collaborative effort will ensure direction while promoting buy-in
4. Enlist a volunteer army – massive, impactful change takes an army working together, pulling hard to get the ship moving.
5. Enable action by removing barriers – remove restrictions on creativity or process that are slow or inefficient.
6. Generate short-term wins – identify opportunities for immediate improvement that can help create momentum for change. This will encourage movement and future buy-in.
7. Sustain accelerations – regular check-ins, evaluations, and adjustments are a must. Movement is hard to continue once it has stopped, so keep the momentum going!
8. Institute change – demonstrate how the urgency and buy-in accomplished the goals of change. Consider things like how the organization improved and how are you positioned to succeed in the future.

Strengths

Kotter’s Theory is intuitive to follow, backed by observational research, and it is a clear guide to utilizing strengths within your organization to assure ensure is successful.

Weaknesses

Although change takes time, the step-by-step nature of this process may extend that time. Extensive planning must be done to ensure these steps are done in sequential order, as well as to ensure success. This limits the agility of the model and the ability to adjust quickly at any stage of the process.

Model #2: ADKAR

The founder of a global leader in change management, Prosci, created the ADKAR organizational model. In this model, Jeff Hiatt outlines 5 outcomes needed to ensure that your changes last and are successful. The overall theme of the ADKAR model is that true change occurs when the individuals of your organization change.

The 5 Outcomes of the ADKAR Model:

1. Awareness of the need for change – Inform your employees and stakeholders of the change and action, and ask for input
2. Desire to support the change – You must develop the desire to support, as a failure in individual support will impact further efforts
3. Knowledge of how to change – This is about knowing the what, as well as the how. Inform employees and stakeholders on the how and ask for their input. Out of this, create an action plan and enable execution.
4. Ability to demonstrate skills & behaviors – Gauge your employees’ ability to execute the proper actions of the change, identify any gaps, and provide support where needed.
5. Reinforcement to make the change stick – Ensure that the change is stable on the individual level through setting defined processes and incentives to keep the change moving.

Strengths

This model is agile, flexible, and outcome-oriented. Along with this, it allows for adjustments in-process and focuses on success at the individual level. This focus creates improved chances for success. Also, this method clearly states desired outcomes and shifts actions towards those outcomes.

Weaknesses

If you have large change management needs, ADKAR may not be the best fit for your organization, as it is so focused on that individual level. Also, the inputs are less defined, which means this model should only be used if the desired change is known and well defined.

Adapt These Models For Your Organization

Agile + Smaller Change? Start Here

If you are working on smaller change initiatives, the flexibility of the ADKAR model may fit your needs the best. This approach is outcome-oriented, as well as thrives on individual adoption to ultimately foster change.

However, this approach may lack the structure that is needed for a larger organization or initiative.

Complex + Large Initiative? Start Here

If your organization is embarking on a larger, more complicated effort, Kotter’s Theory is for you! This step-by-step approach provides a clear path to ensuring success in your long-term efforts towards change, as long as appropriate resources are available.

Somewhere in the Middle? Start Here

Of course, there is always a middle ground! A hybrid approach of ADKAR and Kotter’s Theory is often the route we choose here at TSI.

Highlights of this approach are as follows:

• Begin by understanding your organization’s Readiness for Change
• Start a movement through building a vision and involving stakeholders
• Grow this movement through empowerment and communication
• Sustain this movement through enablement and removing current barriers
• Maintain movement results with reinforcement and short-term success as the change becomes institutionalized

What You Can Expect From Us

Although this was a lot of information, this does not even begin to demonstrate all of the organizational change models out there. However, these are two that we believe in and have seen proven in creating lasting change. This is especially true when key portions of each method work together with our proven methodology.

1. We begin with an organizational context discussion, setting the basis for the design of your ideal future state.
2. Next, we analyze current state processes, identifying any gaps in ability or knowledge.
3. From there, we work with you to develop and implement a plan to fill those gaps.
4. Finally, determine the best way to sustain, institute, and reinforce change.

BONUS: We also involve those responsible for the workflows in the design process to encourage buy-in.

Whether you are feeling ready to dive in or overwhelmed with where to start, reach out to us to set up an initial call. We would love to walk through these processes in more detail, as well as help you determine which approach may be best for your organization.

The post How to Make Change Stick Through Organizational Change Models appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

A few years ago, I noticed something interesting with our clients who hired TSI to train them on process improvement and organizational change management skills and subsequently lead them in their own process improvement journey. Don’t tell anyone…but their culture actually began to change as a result of what they learned and started to apply in their own organizations.

This post is not about the work that we did. Not at all. It’s about the initiative that these teams took, the space that their leadership gave them, and the progress they made.

I discovered that by starting with more tactical needs like improving operating efficiency without any intentional ‘culture change’ initiative, culture change was happening. Starting with learning new skills, these organizations developed an individual and organizational sense of “self-awareness” and they paid attention to some interesting fundamentals of the process, such as:

• Who is currently involved in getting the work done versus who actually needs to be?
• What steps are being performed?
• Are most of these steps manual or automated?
• What do we do that adds little to no value to our organization?
• How do our handoffs work?
• Where do we fumble?
• Where do we thrive?

These are all critical questions around process improvement. However, the culture shift that occurs through the program of process improvement is most notable. Individuals and teams learned useful tools that equipped them to look at their world, and in turn their organization, differently.

When employees are empowered to make a change, this can build momentum within the organization and begin to change its DNA. You move from an organization that is operated, to a degree, in the dark, to one that has cast a spotlight on key opportunities for improvement.

The 4 E’s of the Teams That Get It

Through working with a variety of organizations, it is worth noting that the teams who embrace their new mindset and try to ‘move the needle’ on the culture scale, typically possess a combination of these four characteristics:

1. Energized – The process improvement pilot team members – some may be subject experts – who stand out simply radiate positivity. They learn with ‘fresh eyes’ and are willing to try, refine, and improve on new skills.
2. Empowered – This one is mostly the responsibility of senior leadership to allow the team to make changes absent of bureaucracy. In conjunction, the team needs to take that responsibility and do something useful with it. That does not mean that the process team has carte blanch authority, but they need some latitude to initiate change. How frustrating that must be for those in organizations who are given a chance to learn new skills but have no authority to make any changes.
3. Lack of Ego – Prima Donna ego’s kill culture change. The teams that I see thrive are typically diverse and absent of large egos that kill the culture. Process improvement team member selection is so critical, as they need both Attitude and Aptitude to be successful.
4. Engaged – This is no different than the person who ‘goes through the motions’ during their workouts and then gets frustrated they aren’t seeing any results; the engaged team, comprised of team members that challenge themselves and each other, is in a class by themselves.

The Quick Fix Mindset: Just Buy New Software

An alternative approach that we have also experienced is an interesting one. And, not surprisingly, it is an approach that we see far too often. The approach looks something like this – a group (a growing corporation, university or non-profit organization) has an aging technology platform and surrounding it, inefficient processes, and some degree of dysfunction in the organization structure. They aim to fix it by buying a new (and expensive) software product. Then, when it comes time to implement the new software product (an ERP, CRM, or other significant new enterprise application) the expectation is that this new shiny piece of software is a lever to transform their culture.

My software implementation friends – I feel your pain 🙂

This is an interesting approach. I’m sure it has worked somewhere along the line, but it is akin to purchasing that shiny new piece of workout equipment, thinking that it is going to turn you into a workout enthusiast.

This is exactly where tools and techniques pertaining to organizational change management collide with the needs and levers for culture change. Just like the workout equipment metaphor once you are clear on “your why” – doing some mental and emotional preparatory work – you will make gains.

How You Can Initiate Culture Change

1. Does your team or organization have any “bright spots” or isolated examples of wins that we can use to build some culture change momentum on?
2. What tensions and blind spots does your organization have that prevent it from moving to the culture that will allow it to thrive?
3. When you think about the key characteristics that are part of your organization’s DNA, consider which ones you want to build on and which you hope to move away from.
4. How can you illustrate the impact that those organizational ‘toxins’ have on your organization?

If you are a corporate or higher education practitioner (sorry consultant friends), consider attending our upcoming webinar on utilizing process improvement for cultural change within your organization.

Do you have other things that you and your organization consider when looking at characteristics and culture? We would love to hear them! Let us know what has worked or failed within your organization in the comments below.

For other related articles on culture, check out these posts on TSI Insights:

Why Culture Change is so Elusive (and What You Can Do)

Change Culture by Not Changing Culture

How Does a Culture of Change Turn Resistance into Growth?

The post How to Create Lasting Cultural Change Within Your Organization appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..