The Human Response to Your Change Projects
Dori Gilbert PMO-CP LQCP
Connecting people to decisions, technology, and change | Program Leader | Communications Agility | Stakeholder Alignment | Project Success
This is a three-part series on integrating Project Management and Change Management. In the first part, I discuss what Organizational Change Management is and why it’s important to know about and integrate with your projects, the second part explores ways to incorporate it, and this part goes into more detail about the sources for the suggested practices while describing how people react to change and how it’s managed.
?The Human Response to Your Change Projects
According to William Bridges in his Bridge’s Transition Model, the response to change is transition. Every transition starts with…an ending. The response to something ending is often a sense of loss with disbelief, anger or overwhelm.
The way to guide people through this first stage of three is to talk openly about these responses, and acknowledge what is ending, even celebrate it. Cassandra Worthy, an advocate for Change Enthusiasm, has a framework that starts with the emotional intelligence to acknowledge the range of emotions when presented with change, to be inclusive of all emotions, and to develop resiliency considering these emotions as a gift to get you there!
The second stage of the Transition Model is called the Neutral Zone. This is what Cassandra Worthy considers the opportunity – the chance to learn, develop, and grow as an organization and/or as an individual. Bridges focuses more on the organization and what it can do to help listen, coach, train, educate, and loop in people with short-term wins and learning through this period of uncertainty and drifting.
As a lifelong personal development enthusiast, I like Cassandra’s approach that also advises individuals to take on a growth mindset, learn from their response, and act constructively for their own resilience and career. She asks, “do you want to be bitter, or better?”
The third stage of Bridge’s Transition Model is of acceptance and energy around the change, called the New Beginning. In this stage, people are open to learning, have energy for change, and may even respond with a renewed commitment to their team or role.
Guiding people through the New Beginning might be to celebrate accomplishments around the change, facilitate learning, and to integrate the change into goals where appropriate.
The benefits of knowing how people respond to transition and how to create change enthusiasm is tied to understanding the mindset of your coworkers going through change. How can you help? You can:
While Bridge’s Transition Model is an important aspect of understanding change, it is only a part of a system that produces meaningful, lasting change that results from a change project. To implement change compassionately and inclusively, best practices have been developed in change management tools and frameworks.
Change Management Frameworks
One of the most popular frameworks is from Prosci, which simply presents the elements of change with their acronym ADKAR:
A – Awareness is about offering people the context and key points about the change and project
D – Desire builds the case for the benefits and significance of the change, creating desire in people
K – Knowledge provides formalized training and coaching for people
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A – Ability is ensuring that people have to ability to onboard to the change, by adding practice, metrics, and processes
R – Reinforcement celebrates accomplishments of people as they continue to act on the change
Because OCM is a discipline that revolves around people’s beliefs, emotions, and behaviors, it has traditionally been a function that sits in Human Resources (HR), or the People Office.
However in 2023, Prosci researchers found a first-time trend that the most common place for the Change Management function to be located is now the project management office (PMO) instead of HR. ?To me, this more strongly emphasizes the need for project leaders to have knowledge of and integration with OCM!
John Kotter’s change model focuses on engagement and culture by creating a sense of urgency, enlisting volunteers of enthusiasts to spread the message, removing barriers, and generating short-term wins. His complete model is here.
McKinsey and other consulting groups also have models for change management. Some are more leadership and organizationally based, and some are more focused on employees and adjusting behaviors.
No matter the model, most address elements of ADKAR and Bridge’s transitions. Usually there are three to five phases that start with a preparation or response phase; a transitory phase or phases to manage doubts, uncertainty, and resistance in detail; and finally, an implementation phase that also sets up conditions for the next change.
Read and Follow Suggestions
-Leading Change is a practical approach for organizations
-Our Iceberg is Melting is a parable of business change following a group of penguins
-XLR8 – Accelerate is how to align urgency and people’s energy
If you didn’t know where to start with OCM, I hope this series of articles provides you with some next steps in learning and implementing people-supporting actions into your project plans. And if you’ve begun, I hope you’re inspired to grow OCM in your project management function. Let me know if I can help you brainstorm!
Dori Gilbert integrates Project Management and Change Management to achieve project delivery results that are aligned with business objectives and build agility for the organization. Contact Dori for services in planning or brainstorming project change, change execution, general PMO governance or support, or team development through Listening Intelligence.