The contributors were identified by experienced practitioners, project leaders, executives and consultants (over 70% had four or more years of involvement in applying change management). Contributors to success range from having to do with specific practice areas (such as sponsorship) to addressing structural elements (like dedicated resources). Let’s investigate each of the final four contributors in more depth.
4. Frequent and Open Communication
Practitioners often struggle against the misconception that change management is “just communications.” Although it is much more than that, communications are critical to success. As the fourth greatest contributor, frequent and open communications includes:
- Delivering change messages in a timely and transparent manner
- Using effective channels and communicating frequently
- Tailoring messages for the intended audience
- Including clear and compelling reasons for the change and the implications of not changing
While the change practitioner is responsible for creating the communications plan and making sure it is carried out, rarely should the practitioner be doing the communicating. Participants identified the groups that employees prefer to hear change messages from.
5. Employee Engagement and Participation
The reason we apply change management is to drive employee adoption and usage in order to realize organizational results and outcomes. Because of this objective, it’s clear why employee engagement and participation was identified as a top contributor to success. Highlights include:
- Employees should demonstrate willingness to participate in the change and cooperate
- Employees should be cooperative with those administering the change
- It is crucial to make employees aware of the need for change
- Tactics include: training, involving employees in the project design, hosting special events that promote the change
Change requires individuals to do their jobs differently. For this reason, it is especially important to address front-line employees in the change plan. Resistance from this group can occur if a step is missed. Study participants identified front-line employees as the second most resistant group. However, almost 50% of participants believed at least half of this resistance could have been avoided with better change management.
6. Engagement and Integration with Project Management
Prosci has noticed integration becoming a growing trend in the field of change management. In the latest study, 71% of participants integrated project management and change management. When they identified this as a top contributor, they explained briefly how integration was achieved.
- Fully integrating the change management and project management approaches
- Involving change management profession gate reviews
- Integrating change management activities into gate requirements
- Supporting collaboration between project and change management teams to develop the overall project plan
These complementary disciplines naturally cross paths throughout the life of an initiative. More and more organizations are realizing the value of integrating project management and change management; and it just seems to make sense. Participants who integrated were 38% more likely to meet or exceed project objectives than those who did not integrate.
7. Engagement with and Support from Middle Management
Managers can become a change practitioner’s greatest ally in times of change because they are closest to employees impacted by change. Participants explained this top contributor as:
- Gaining the buy-in and involvement of middle management (to ensure positive interactions with frontline employees)
- Frequent meetings and one-on-one communication (to ensure managers’ continued support)
- Training and coaching managers on their roles (to prepare them to be effective change leaders)
Middle managers were considered to be the most resistant group in Prosci’s study. Similar to employee resistance, most participants believed a majority of this could have been avoided. It makes sense, as the study also found that a whopping 60% of participants said their organizations did not adequately prepare managers to lead change.
Conclusion
Some of the greatest contributors that make up the 2014 list have stood the test of time. Sponsorship has been identified as the #1 top contributor in every study since 1998. Employee engagement also debuted in the first study and made the list in all of the proceeding studies. Communication has been on this list since Prosci’s second study in 2000. Brand new to the list of top contributors in 2014 is project management and change management integration. This finding might also be a forecast as growing numbers of organizations work towards integration.
Reference: Best Practices in Change Management – 2014 Edition: Change Management Learning Center http://www.change-management.com/
