How many times did you set New Year’s resolutions for yourself? And, how many of those did you actually manage to stick to? According to Statistics Brain Research Institute, only 8% of those that start the year with new intentions can stick to them.
We experience it in our daily lives, how human beings are naturally brought to resist change.
Organisations witness that too.
Organisational change can impact one’s job in a variety of ways, from the tools used to the people one has to report to (Figure 1).
Integrating sustainability in the core of organisations also implies change. Pressure to do so comes from:
As much as directing organisations towards more responsible practices is an urgent matter, it cannot happen overnight.
Imposing change rapidly and not properly engaging with those directly affected by change is the perfect recipe for failure.
In fact, multiple statistics (McKinsey, 2019) highlight the challenge that organisations face in successfully carrying out change:
Change management comes in to avoid the above. It can be defined as:
The application of a structured process and set of tools for leading the people side of change to achieve a desired outcome.
prosci.com
The numbers above already depict some of the reasons why you need to manage change.
To summarise, Prosci’s Best Practices in Change Management Research finds that initiatives with effective change management are 6 times more likely to meet objectives (Figure 2):
And there is more. Organisations need to manage change to:
In the end, organisations don’t change. People do. Hence, to successfully carry out change you need to support employees and make sure they understand why and how executing change in their daily work.
At this point, you might be wondering, how do I make sure I’m managing change well?
As said above, when change is to happen in a blink of an eye, the chance of underachieving is high.
To carry out change well, it is key to take a structured approach. We identify 7 main steps to change, based on the model put forth by B. Willard in The Sustainability Champions Guidebook (Figure 3).
Internal motivations or external factors can be the wake-up call you need to understand the need for change.
Make sure there is alignment on the needed change across the board and secondly bring this shared vision to the rest of the team.
Map your current position compared to the end goal you wish to achieve.
Based on the previous step, you can proceed in developing appropriate strategies to move towards the future ambitions.
That is identifying the underlying reasons that motivate change. With respect to sustainability, it can be a matter of complying with new regulations, reducing operational costs or even being able to find talent.
This is the step in which you move from planning to implementing. You start to carry out change in practice across the organisation.
Lastly, you embed change within the organisation and align fundamental elements such as the team’s structure, skills, tools, etc.
On top of this 7-step process, the ADKAR model provides relevant insights concerning the people-side of change.
First, you raise awareness across the team about change. You educate and promote the change you want to implement.
This could entail:
The goal is to create a shared understanding of the change that is to happen.
Here the goal is to create the shared vision we talked in Step 2 of the above process. This is crucial to ensure that everyone understands how change is going to benefit the organisation as a whole and them as individuals.
This aspect refers to spreading across the organisation the knowledge regarding the topic covered by change.
For example, when subject of change is sustainability, this means increasing the team knowledge on ESG.
This element can often be confused or merged with the previous. However, ‘ability’ refers more specifically to the way change will impact employees’ day-to-day job.
For example, if the organisation decides to start sourcing its raw materials more sustainably:
Both knowledge and ability can be built through:
Finally, it is important to recognise success and reward teams or individuals that positively carried out change.
The aspect of reinforcement also focuses on how to continuously improve through constant communication, engagement and upskilling.
To conclude, we summarise 5 best practices your organisation should keep in mind when implementing the next change:
Additionally, co-creating the future shared vision can be extremely powerful. In fact, people happen to be much more motivated to contribute to something they took part in creating.
Additionally, collaboration can happen both internally across functions and teams as well as externally. In this second case, the support of clients, suppliers or even peers might be needed to inspire and accelerate the transition.
Finally, manage change by supporting people in the process. Success will be possible only when employees have the knowledge and tools to change their behaviour at work.