Miniseries | Transformation, change & fatigue (7/7)
Berlin Skyline viewed from Charitè Tower [photographed by Dr. Kathrin Andrich, CC BY-SA 4.0 licensed]

Miniseries | Transformation, change & fatigue (7/7)

Dr. Kathrin A. Dr. Kathrin A.

Dr. Kathrin A.

Sovereign Services & Delivery

发布日期: 2023年8月16日
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Transformation and changes initiative have been commonplace in modern enterprises for many years, and they are increasingly met with change fatigue. Its causes are complex, and understanding and addressing these causes requires understanding the most relevant challenges in transformation and change management (TCM). Participative change approaches were proposed to mitigate change fatigue. However, they can only be part of the solution, and instead of just looking isolated at certain process frameworks, principles, best practices, and critical success factors created and measured for transformation and change management an integrated map combining all learnings may help to design holistic transformation and change initiative reducing unnecessary change fatigue.

Previously published in this miniseries

Part 1 | Innate & acquired behavioral change drivers – Part 2 | Decision-making drivers – Part 3 | Modern work environments – Part 4 | Analyzing and monitoring change needs – Part 5 | Participative change approach & change fatigue – Part 6 | Change process and its success factors

Part 7 | Change management lifecycle

Summary derived TCM challenges:

  1. Giving employees opportunity and permission to express their negative feelings throughout change initiative to accelerate their emotional processing of perceived loss and accept change faster.
  2. Identifying and reducing forces pulling the group standards away from the desired direction, allowing them to actively choose the change behavior to increase change velocity and change success rate.
  3. Stabilize this new behavior by balancing out the forces applied to the group standard.
  4. Understanding the context of change needs, while assessing and monitoring for cognitive biases impairing objectivity and avoiding oversimplification.
  5. Diagnosing change needs from a diverse viewpoint creating a wide range of options, creating change visions valuable to all stakeholders.
  6. Adopting and maintaining an appropriate leadership style for and within different situations.
  7. Unleashing employee’s change capabilities to accelerate change adoption and to sustain new behaviors.
  8. Governing and coordinating change initiatives throughout the organization, to observe and balance the change burden on leaders, managers, and employees.
  9. Operationalizing Transformation and change management by creating a tailored framework and embedding it in day-to-day processes.
  10. Assessing and diagnosing change needs as holistically as possible / feasible
  11. Defining outcome-oriented metrics measuring progress and adoption
  12. Avoiding change management approaches that create waste, change resistant, fatigue, that fail or lead to catastrophic (company) failure.
  13. Determining who to include in the decision-making process and how to do it.
  14. Including employees involved in day-to-day work in change implementation.
  15. Communicating about changes in an upfront, honest, and dialogic fashion.
  16. Differentiating between facts and opinions on transformation and change management dos and don’ts.
  17. Creating a congruent mental model of transformation and change management process and action fields relevant for success.
  18. Mapping different transformation and change management processes and activity fields with each other
  19. Identifying, prioritizing, and focusing on the critical factors for success
  20. Differentiating between facts and opinions on transformation and change management dos and don’ts.

Transformation and change management lifecycle

By consolidating the information, I summarized in this series I came up with the following as a possible lifecycle for transformation and change management:

Transformation & change management lifecycle overview. Steps that are visualized as a circle fed with step one which is the perpetuated: Set-up change management lifecycle, current state, unfreeze leaders, leaders transition enabled, move leaders, leaders unstably changed, unfreeze relevant parts of organization, relevant parts of organization transition enabled, move relevant parts of organization, relevant parts of organization unstably changed, freeze, envisioned state. Unfreeze implicates identifying & reducing forces pulling group standards away from the desired direction, move implicating to allow stakeholders to actively choose the behavioral change, and freeze implicates stabilizing this new behavior as new group standard.
Fig. 15 – Transformation & change management lifecycle overview [By Dr. Kathrin Andrich, CC BY-SA 4.0 licensed]


Set-up change management lifecycle; Set-up organization for continuous change; Continuous integration of lessons learned; Set-up organization for co-creating change strategies; Operationalized, governed, and coordinated approach within the entire organization; Monitor & manage velocity and distribution of different change initiatives for each individual employee group. Unfreeze leaders; Structured change need analysis; Structured analysis and diagnosis of change needs and context; As holistically as possible while feasible; From diverse angles; With diverse analytical tools; Avoid oversimplification; Investigate facts & leadership practices; Identify stakeholders; Identify undermining systems & structures; Initialize change process by; Defining a change goal, aligned with organizational needs; Select who needs to be involved in change decisions; Involving stakeholder in change decision; Change vision; Create a compelling change vision directing the change effort, that is valuable to all stakeholders; Envision its future state; Create cultural fit; Describe core idea; Develop leadership support; Building executive support; Sponsor selection & cultivation; Make a compelling business case for change; Establish organization-wide change leadership; Build powerful group to lead the change; Influence / engage stakeholders. Move leaders; Structured change planning & preparation; Plan and prepare leading change; Select leadership team to lead the particular change; Ensure change managers have change mgmt. skills and change organizational knowledge; Enable change leaders; As effective team; To adopt & maintain situational context appropriate leadership style; To avoid top-down leadership style, and saves time, reduces change resistance, and change fatigue; To assess & monitor for objectivity impairing cognitive biases; Stakeholder management; Make stakeholder management plan; Plan & prepare 'Enable change'; Change enabled environment; Plan & prepare 'Motivate change progress'; Ensure retainment of key employees; Change agents; Determine change agent's power; Build change agent support system; Plan intermediate milestones; Plan & prepare 'Review change progress'; Define outcome-oriented metrics; Measuring change adoption progress; Measuring change institutionalization; Continuous integration of lessons learned. Unfreeze relevant parts of organization; Structured change planning & preparation; Plan & prepare change readiness & capacity; Assess capacity for change; Assess change readiness; Create readiness by preparing target audience; Manage velocity and distribution of different change initiatives; Develop strategy to move to change vision; Co-create change strategy; Plan commitments; Actively involve employee's in change planning; Activate employee’s change capabilities, to accelerate adoption and to sustain new behaviors; Plan & prepare 'Implement change'; Employees-owned implementation planning; Involve employees conducting day-to-day work in change implementation planning; Encourage experimentation; Employ implementation-supporting practices; Identify, Attract and Early Adopters of Change; Plan activities creating visible performance improvements; Plan & prepare 'Change conversation'; Change conversation strategy selection; Change conversation preparation; Plan & prepare 'Sustain change'; Start change conversation; Converse about vision, change strategy, and change implementation; In ongoing, upfront, honest, and dialogic fashion; Avoid repetitive communication of a polished positivistic story; Inform employees about change; Leverage networks within the organization; Strategic & targeted conversations; Communicating change necessity clearly; Overcome change resistance; Enable to create change readiness; Beware of the impacts of change fatigue; Do not overload, but still provide sufficient information; Select appropriate frequency; Select appropriate communication channels. Move relevant parts of organization; Structured change implementation; Executing the plan; Move from experimentation to execution; Create planned improvements; Perform evidence-based interventions; Create planned improvements; Adjust technology, systems & structures; Adjust roles and responsibilities; Assigning appropriate roles to employees; Adjust talent acquisition and development; Develop new competencies and skills; Reinforcing adoption; Allow employees to adopt new behaviors; Build change agent support system; Utilize Early Adopters of Change; Adjust organizational culture; Continuous integration of lessons learned; Enable & accelerate change; Provide change enabled environment; Change sponsors and leaders model desired behaviors; Making relevant information available; Provide resources; Provide room and safety for expressing negative emotions; Provide training, coaching, and empowerment; Remove obstacles so others can act; Remotivate change progress; Keep change conversation going; Reward intermediate milestones; Recognize & reward involved employees; Review change progress; Measure change efforts progress and outcomes; Assess change agent's motivation; Assess employee's motivation; Change team performance; Measure effectiveness of communication. Freeze; Keep moving forward; Keep change conversation going; Stay on course; Persistence through challenges; Sustain change agent support system; Sustain change; Reinforcing adoption; Integrate lessons learned; Reinforce new behaviors; Sustain change via institutionalization.
Fig. 16 – Transformation & change management lifecycle details [By Dr. Kathrin Andrich, CC BY-SA 4.0 licensed].


[Contents were developed and edited by myself, in April, May & Juli 2023 for publication in form of seven LinkedIn articles. I adapted and extended here a work paper submitted this May for my MBA’s extended elective on transformation & change management. The section sequence was changed and part 4 & 7 are new additions.]

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