The Do’s and Don’ts of Change Management: How to Seamlessly Integrate Change

You may have been feeling that change is needed within your organization for a while now.  With so many ideas and theories out there, you may not know where to begin or if you can be successful with change management. Creating a vision of the big picture and the future of your organization is essential when integrating change.  However, communicating this to your employees and customers can be difficult and must be appropriately managed.

Seamlessly integrating change involves finding out what is taking up most of your organization’s time and identifying the root cause of any issues.  Team process improvements, blind spots, and time-wasters are all elements that will help to integrate change.  However, one of the most important factors before beginning change management implementation is to focus on the mission and overall goals of the company. For additional success, the organization needs to introduce innovation and creativity into the mix. 

The best practices of building dedicated teams are focused on creativity and minimizing governance and hierarchies.  Focusing on the true nature of innovation is a guiding principle that can lead companies to successful change. 

Employees are essential to creating effective, lasting change. However, they are often the ones who resist change the most. Encouraging them to share their ideas helps them feel that they are part of the company’s vision and a mission for future success. Organizations that genuinely allow employees to really be part of this change have the most success.

How do you know when to make a change?

There is a lingering problem within your organization that has yet to be addressed.

This is a signal that something within your organization needs to change.  Whether it be a process, a procedure, morale, or communication that’s not working efficiently, it’s time to focus on this lingering problem and start the change process.

You’ve identified competition.

A competitor’s product is being noticed by your customers. Maybe it’s being sold at a lower price, or the competitor appears to be more creative and innovative. Take note and assess whether or not you need to create a new pathway to success.

Your organization has been in a state of complacency, and innovation is rarely occurring.

Believe it or not, this is one of the biggest reasons that organizations tend to fail.  Many companies begin on the premise of creativity and innovation.  In the beginning,  a new business is exciting, inspiring, and even emotional. What happens when an organization moves away from those creative early days?

When organizations become complacent and stray away from the ideals they were founded upon, they can become stagnant and tedious for both customers and employees.  It’s essential to introduce innovation and creativity and to promote this at every level of the organization.

How to Make Change Successful

1. Create that sense of urgency.

Help employees to understand why a change is necessary and identify any roadblocks with communication and push back that you may encounter. You need to successfully communicate with your employees about the change that is happening. Let them know the when these changes are expected to take place. Knowing a timeline and a sense of when things should be done will help give your employees an accurate picture of how urgent the situation is.

2. Develop a mindset of innovation and creativity.

This is a necessity when focusing on change at all levels of the organization.  Allowing your employees to be innovative, increasing leadership transparency, and emphasizing organizational goals will allow your employees to focus and understand the urgency.

3. Ensure that all employees are on board and motivated towards the same goals and mission.

If change is about to occur, leadership needs to be committed to it and help employees understand why it is needed.  Will extra work be required of the employees?  If so, explain why.  Will there be a change in how the organization works? For example, if you expect less individual work and more teamwork, be clear about this upfront.

4. Remove barriers to change.

Organizations can focus on simplification and empowerment, common inefficiencies, communication delays, inefficient backlog management, redundancy, and excessive errors. Communication of overall goals that enhances confidence in the big picture, independent decision-making, and overcoming competition with personal skills and creative ideas lead forward-thinking organizations to greatness.

5. Allow employees to have a voice and for leaders to empower their ideas.

Simply ask your employees to identify if they are noticing barriers or inefficiencies. The empowerment process and allowance for creativity will motivate them to solve these issues.  This is useful for the organization, but it helps employees have ownership over a project, work in teams, and feel part of its overall mission.  This is the first step when implementing a successful change management strategy.

 Successful Change Management

Innovation and creativity are at the forefront of successful change. When companies and staff become complacent and unfocused, organizations face obstacles to implementing change.  Success is more likely to happen when leadership is committed to ownership of projects and giving employees more freedom to innovate.

Conclusion

Change management can be very successful if the change is managed and led correctly from the beginning. But direction is still required.  Decreasing the amount of governance and hierarchies and finding that source of innovation that helped you start the company in the first place are both great places to start. 

By understanding your organization and trusting your employees’ ideas, you empower them to greatness and allow them to be accountable and integral to change.

 

This article was first published in 2022 but has been updated and expanded

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