the Center For Change Management Blog

What about those small change projects?

Small Projects

When training in organisations I often come across line managers who are running quite small change projects. They typically involve only 2-4 staff (mostly part-time) and some IT resource. A typical scope might be:

Change a process or data collection to meet a new statutory requirement
Introduce a new form to collect data, or move a form online (which always invites changes)
move a team from one location to another without disrupting services

Discussions reveal that these small change projects are running, without control, in most organisations. The worrying thing for me is that the project managers don’t see themselves doing change.
click to see why

Convincing people to change

In a recent posting on their web site Prosci have discussed their ADKAR model for describing how an individual makes a successful change. Towards the end of the article they provide data from a recent webinar in which they ask which stage of the model poses the biggest challenge. Just over two-thirds of the respondents said the Desire stage was the biggest challenge of the five stages. Is this a surprise?
NO.
Click here to find out why

How does that affect the benefits?

We have a focus for all of our training on change: delivering benefits to our clients. We also use a similar mantra with our clients to help them be successful in change which is:
How does that affect the benefits?
It is intended to focus every interaction, from the top down, on the benefits and the risks to achieving them. If your correspondent can’t identify an impact on the benefits then you should stop the conversation and have one that does affect the benefits. Using a simple technique like this it doesn’t take long to make a change become benefits focused. Making sure everyone understands the benefits and is focused on delivering them is a simple, but essential, technique to focus behaviour on success. click for more

Does the Change Curve exist?

What is the Change Curve

I am sure many of you will have heard or know of the change curve. This is the idea that all humans go through a series of emotions as a result of a change. The curve shows the different emotions and plots time (x-axis) against a number of different measures including performance, morale, impact, and competence of the individual affected by change. click for more

A change in performance or the Hawthorne effect?

I have been reviewing some work this week and found the authors promoting a concept known as the Hawthorne Effect (of which more later). I read an article in the Economist in 2009 which pulled the rug from the whole concept of the Hawthorne Effect and underlined the danger of extrapolating a generic concept from a single instance. click for more

Do you need a Change Manager?

A couple of recent experiences, training and consulting, have tested my assumption that a change manager (or change team) is needed to deliver a successful change. click to read more

Training for change

Robert Cole, Managing Director, explores why employees need to be trained in several key areas for change to be a success. Click to read the full story published in Training Journal Magazine.

A Middle Ground approach to change

In a recent MIT Sloan Management Review (Winter 2013) one of the articles describes what it calls a ‘Middle Ground’ approach to change. I thought it worth reporting as it has a couple of neat ideas about where to get ideas for change.
click here to see ideas

Change Management at Prosci

One of our favourite web sites for both strategic change and little tips on doing change better is that run by the US consultancy called Prosci (pronounced pro — as in professional — and sci — as in science). The strength of the Prosci web site is that the insights they share come from both their experience and a bi-annual survey they conduct amongst their six hundred odd customers worldwide. They have two interesting items that you might like to have a look at:
click here to read about the webinars

Chief Change Officer

We believe that change in an organisation is a core competence; at least as much as finance, HR, marketing, sales, operations, or IT. So we advocate a senior manager who is accountable for successful change as a member of every senior management board â?? a Chief Change Officer or Director for Change. This person will be primarily an expert in Change; not an expert in something else and then given Change to look after.
click here to see more