Question

A recommendation report of aimed at your client proposing the most appropriate change intervention from your exploration as a change agent within the organization. Your recommendation as a change agent.

Q. Discussion on how to sustain change in the organization.

Answer 1

Here are my recommendations as a change agent to help sustain change in the organisation

Important aspect 1)
It is important to have a key process for change management and to keep it sustainable:

• An effective change management process is the one which defines clear and shared vision: Having a clear vision, defining why the company needs the changes and what needs to be done helps to create support for the success of the change process. Since the change management process affects every member of the organisation it is important to have a clearly defined vision, direction & understanding of the need for change. A shared vision makes sure all employees are invested in the process to bring the needed change. People are able to communicate effectively & work with organisational commitment.
• Another important aspect that makes an effective change management process is having clear accountability at all levels: After having plans, vision and understanding of the entire process it is important to track the progression at regular intervals. Lack of accountability makes the entire process aimless leading to return to the old habits. Hence it is important to ensure accountability until the process is closed. The accountability across all levels ensures that change is accepted throughout the organisation.
• Ownership by leaders and managers is another component for effective organisational change management: While the organisation stakeholders and employee needs to embrace change & support the change management process it is important for having leadership in the entire process. It is important because having a leader who has trust and support from its employees needs to take ownership of the process and guide the process to ensure objectives are met. Strong and passionate leadership helps a lot during the process. The ownership of achieving goals of change management must be shared by senior executives of the organisation.

Important aspect 2) It is important for managers and leaders to be equally involved in the process and here is why:

• It helps to bring employees and team members involved in the process of executing the strategy/change management policies together. It makes them understand and align daily decisions and tasks in the direction of the company.
• The top leaders and senior members of the organisation need to communicate and cascade the message from the top making sure no communication is lost and synergies are well defined hence it is important to have a clear understanding.
• It is important to have a clear understanding so that leaders can communicate the value and what is in store for employees of the organisation as it helps to drive down behaviors and defines the expectations for recognition and rewards.
• The alignment and understanding of change management amongst top leaders ensure that all team members are able to figure out how their individual job descriptions are related to overall strategies. The alignment stage makes the overall strategy understandable in a simplified manner and avoids misunderstanding and confusion.
• The clarity and understanding also help the business leaders to bring a degree of innovation and creativity into play. The customer-centric behavior should be at the heart of alignment as it helps to bring change management in the organisation.  

In order to bring & sustain change, it is important to focus both on productivity and innovation aspect of employees. The management and leadership together must allow it to be out of the box and not orthodox bringing change and trust in people.

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