You want to be a successful Change Management consultant. What are the best ways to develop your skills?

Being solid in change management is a no brainer for becoming a change management consultant. However, especially if you're planning on going out on your own, you also want to think about the basics of marketing, sales, finding a bank, your pricing model, your CPA, and in short, everything about running a business. Consider hiring a coach and make a plan.

Being a successful change management consultant is much more than learning a few change models. Those are important, but skilled practitioners should have much preparation. First, to choose and apply models appropriately, you should understand social psychology -- what influences people to adopt, how emotions come into play, how organizational systems react to change, and how group dynamics come into play. Models are only guidelines that help you think about what to do in a specific change initiative. Secondly, a change consultant should have advanced knowledge of interviewing, surveying, action research, group facilitation, communications, training methods, and adult education concepts.

Actively seek opportunities to work on change initiatives, either within your organization or by volunteering for projects in various sectors. Networking with professionals in the field can also open doors to mentorship and potential project collaborations, allowing you to apply theoretical knowledge in real-world scenarios and gradually build your expertise and reputation.

Many roles could be enhanced by applying more change consulting methods. You could look at improving any efforts to have better relationships with other teams or departments. Or if you have clients or users, you can look at how to improve satisfaction. This will likely involve doing a lightweight stakeholder assessment, developing better communications, and maybe improving training. This can all strengthen basic skills in the field.

Change inevitably induces stress due to the accompanying uncertainty and anxiety. Individuals respond to change in diverse ways. As a change management consultant, cultivating robust soft skills is crucial. Continual development in the areas of active listening, understanding, and empathizing with clients is essential. Moreover, adept conflict resolution, handling differences of opinions, and the ability to negotiate and influence others are key competencies for success in this role.

The ability to create relational communication with stakeholders at all levels of the organization where a change agent is facilitating is key to success. Certainly being seasoned in the art of change management is necessary— but the lack of soft skills makes successful guidance, buy in, and execution of effective strategies difficult. And emotional intelligence? Priceless for the effectiveness of a change leader!

It's important to develop influencing skills and the ability to hold authentic dialogue, where one understands the perspectives of others. If you are aspiring to become a change consultant, you can often start developing these skills in many other roles. This could include leading cross-functional teams, conducting interviews to improve whatever service you are working on, or giving informational presentations. Some low-cost or free ways to practice are joining Toastmasters, volunteering in local organizations, leading an employee interest group, and taking a non-paid leadership role in something like an HOA.

Cultivate a mindset of continuous improvement, and recognize that Change Management is a dynamic field, and strategies that work in one context may not be effective in another. Learn and experiment with new techniques, and be willing to adjust strategies based on feedback and evolving circumstances.

Lifelong learning is critical for all roles, and especially change management. We are experiencing great change in the field of change with more AI, data science, and automation coming in. This is challenging some longstanding beliefs. Change management requires a combination of learning and experiencing. It's hard to know how people will react without going through it. At the same time, too many practitioners are only learning the common best practices. To be effective and be able to work with real situations, it's important to know the underlying science and theory as well.

Be the change example of what you’d like others to emulate. We can’t really “manage change.”But, we can show others examples of how genuinely working ourselves while change is affecting us.

Understand Change Management Methodologies: ADKAR Model: Focuses on 5 key elements for successful change: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement. Kotter's 8-Step Process: Guides change with urgency, coalition-building, vision, communication, empowerment, wins, consolidation, and culture anchoring. Lewin's Change Model: Unfreezes, changes, and refreezes to make new norms, emphasizing prep, implementation, and stabilization phases.

Actively apply your newly developed skills as often as possible. Most formal learning won't resonate if not applied regularly. In some cases it might make sense to create your own projects to make sure you can actively apply your change management skill set. Without regular application change management skills will atrophy.