Steps to Effective Organizational Change
Power Tips for Managers
By K. Waine-Golston; Corporate Trainer
As an Executive your must establish a sense of urgency and create an awareness of the need for the change. Create dissatisfaction with the present reality by exposing the gap between the present state and the desired end state.
Create a vision:
Develop a picture of the future. This vision serves as a guideline, target, or goal and it must be imaginable, desirable, feasible, focused, flexible, and communicable.
Form a powerful guiding coalition within your departments:
These team members or leaders can generate energy in support of the change, can serve as models, and can articulate the vision. They can also assist in removing roadblocks and help maintain momentum.
Communicate that vision Often:
Through every available formal and informal means. This communication includes what the future state will be like, how the transition will come about, why the change is being implemented, how people will be affected by the change. It helps people understand the consequences of not changing. Effective communication helps to keep people feeling included in and connected to the organization. It also helps to communicate what will not be changing in an effort to maintain some semblance of stability.
Employee Participation:
The change effort must be as participative as possible. The initiators of the change must involve the potential resistors in some aspect of its design and implementation, to the extent possible. This participation leads to commitment, which is needed for the change to be a success. Participation facilitates communication of what the change will be and why it is necessary.
Plan for and create short-term wins:
People need the time and opportunity to disengage from the present, a "mourning" period as well as celebrate the gains.
Provide Rewards and Recognition:
Are for the desired behavior in both the transition and future states: "Bonuses, pay systems, promotions, recognition, job assignments, and status symbols all need to be carefully examined during major organizational changes, and then restructured to support the direction of the transition".
Institutionalize new approaches through formal policies, systems and structures.