This blog series examines how change management can and should pay for your next project. My past post, explored why some organizations don’t immediately realize the value of a business transformation. In this post I’m going describe how behavior change leads to value.
Effective organizational change management is a complex undertaking, and leaders often fail to appreciate just how difficult it is. They sometimes make the mistake of believing that it is enough to have the right strategy and to communicate it clearly. To be sure, that is a necessary starting point. Employees need to understand and accept the change and its impact on them since everyone in a business transformation, not just the leaders, must have their oars in the water. However, simply understanding the change is not enough.
More challenging is making sure employees have the requisite skills to execute against the new processes and technologies that bring transformation. After all, the essential element of any transformation is changing employee behavior, especially at the point of implementation. This is no easy task, and more often than not, the anticipated benefits don’t immediately materialize.
If anything, those in the change management field often warn leaders to expect performance to decline upon implementation. Why? Because change efforts require employees to do something different – something that is initially harder, that makes them work longer, and that makes them feels less comfortable.
To overcome these obstacles and accelerate value, leaders need to reorient their focus from the strategic, somewhat amorphous, concept of “managing change” to the tactical concept of “changing behavior.” But how do they do this?
For more insight on how OCM can (and should) pay for your next project, download our guide here or below.
