Question

How are companies working with change or change management and how companies are using strategic change management, and using Using John P. Kotter’s 8 Step Change Model

framework, please explain how the companies are implementing the change

Answer 1

ANS.

Organizational change management involves any systematic approach with the sole purpose of successfully enhancing your organization’s goals, procedures, and strategies from an undesirable present state to a better-performing future state. At the same time, it entails allowing and helping the people at the organization to accept and adapt to this transition.

Change management focuses on the human factor of organizational change by helping the people in your company embrace the transformation effectively and adapt to their new environment quickly — all without resistance and repercussions to productivity.A change management plan can support a smooth transition and ensure your employees are guided through the change journey.

six key steps to effective organizational change management.

1. Clearly define the change and align it to business goals.

2. Determine impacts and those affected.

3. Develop a communication strategy.

4. Provide effective training.

5. Implement a support structure.

6. Measure the change process.

John Kotter, leadership and change management professor at Harvard Business School, introduced his ground-breaking 8-Step Change Model in his 1995 book, “Leading Change”.

Step One: Create Urgency This step is all about preparation and Kotter estimates that roughly 75% of a company’s management needs to be behind a change for it to be successful. This emphasises his point that it is important to prepare well before jumping into the change process. This step creates the 'need' for change, rather than just a 'want' for change. The difference is very important when it comes to the likely support and eventual success of the change.

Step Two: Form a Powerful Coalition It will be very hard to lead the whole change process on your own, and therefore it is important to build a coalition to help you direct others. The coalition you build should be made up of a range of skills, a range of experience and people who come from different areas of the business, to maximise its effectiveness.

Step Three: Create a Vision for Change

A change initiative is likely to be very complicated and can often be hard to understand, in particular for employees at the lower end of the hierarchy. For this reason, creating a vision that is easy to understand and encapsulates the overall aim is a useful way of generating support from the whole organisation. While this vision should be simple and understandable, it also needs to be inspirational to have maximum effect.

Step Four: Communicate the Vision

Creating the vision is not enough to generate support for it, it then needs to be communicated throughout the organisation.

Step Five: Remove Obstacles

The first four steps are essential in building the strength of your change initiative, but it is also important to look for what is likely to reduce its chances for success. Whether its individuals, traditions, legislations or physical obstacles, it is likely there will be a few barriers blocking your change’s path. Identify these as early as possible and rely on available resources to break them down, without disrupting any other areas of the business.

Step Six: Create Short-Term Wins

Change processes often take a while to reap any rewards and this can cause support to fall if individuals think their effort has been wasted. For this reason, it is important to demonstrate the advantages of the new process by creating some short-term wins. Shorter term targets are also useful tools for motivation and direction. Using these wins to justify investment and effort can help to re-motivate staff to continue backing the change.

Step Seven: Build on the Change

Many change processes fail as complacency creeps in towards the end and project are not finished properly. Therefore, Kotter argues it is important to sustain and cement the change for long after it has been accomplished. Keep setting goals and analysing what could be done better for continued improvement.

Step Eight: Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture

Simply changing the habits and processes of employees is not always enough to instil a culture change across the organisation. The changes should become part of the core of your organisation to have a lasting effect. Keeping senior stakeholders on board, encouraging new employees to adopt the changes and celebrating individuals who adopt the change will all help to promote the change to the core of your organisation.