Thoughts on defining, clarifying, and positioning change management
As the Chief Innovation Officer at Prosci, I spend my days and nights in the discipline of change management - working tirelessly to equip practitioners, managers, leaders, and organizations to achieve greater change outcomes by supporting their people through their own personal change journeys. Over the last year, I've also tried to spark insights and ah-has on LinkedIn with musings from my daily conversations and evening happy hours ;)
In this article, I've pulled forward some of the more pertinent and popular reflections in one place. My hope is that you'll find inspiration, useful turns of phrase, and perhaps even some humor in these recent posts from the last year. I've also hyperlinked them to the original post in case you'd like to read and engage with comments there.
Enjoy!
~ Tim
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1. Contextual definition of change management
Change management is how we capture the people-dependent portion of an initiative’s expected ROI/value by preparing, equipping, and supporting our people through their personal change journeys.
2. A rant on stone throwers
"Change management is obsolete," they said.
"Change management is broken," they said.
"Change management isn't applicable anymore," they said.
"Interesting perspective. How do you define change management?" I asked.
"Umm. Hmm. Well. Hmm." they answered.
I define change management as "preparing, equipping, and supporting our people through the change journeys they are on so that they, our initiatives, and our organization are more successful." If you think preparing, equipping, and supporting people is obsolete or inapplicable in today's environment, then you're missing the bigger picture and simply trying to stir the pot.
This concludes Friday's rant. Tim
3. Management does not mean control
When I hear "change management is nonsense, you can't manage change" - I think it comes from misconstruing "management" as "control"... Certainly you can't control change, but you can absolutely manage how it is introduced to increase the likelihood of successful individual transitions that culminate in expected organizational outcomes! It's sort of like "time management" - you can't control "time" but you can sure as hell manage it more effectively toward the results you desire! #changemanagement
4. Change management applicability
The essence of #changemanagement is preparing, equipping, and supporting impacted employees (stakeholders) through changes to how they do their jobs (interact). For some of those changes, they’ll be involved and participate in solution design. For others, they won’t. Some of those changes will be things they are excited about; others won’t be. Some will be leader led; others will be people led. Some will feel hopeful; others will feel threatening. Some will be done with iterations and Agile; others will be a traditional waterfall release. Some are part of the digital revolution; others aren’t. Some will make sense on face value; others may not.
BUT...
All of those changes will in some way impact people's processes, systems, tools, job role, critical behaviors, attitude/mindset/beliefs, performance reviews, reporting structure, location, compensation – or any combination thereof. And achieving the expected outcomes of all of those changes will be dependent on those impacted employees successfully adopting and proficiently using the solution. And all of those changes can benefit from the artful application of a change management approach focused on supporting individual change journeys. #changemanagement #peoplefirst #ADKAR #projectmanagement #leadership
5. “What is change management?” video
Just shared this with a neighbor last night to explain what I do. I hadn't watched it in a while. While I struggle with the haircut and awkward blinks, the message really resonated. If you're looking for a concise (2.5 minute), outcome-focused explanation of #changemanagement and what you do, maybe this can help.
6. Change Management / Change Leadership
Change #leadership is deciding where we need to go as an organization and how we want to get there. #Changemanagement is the structured discipline for how to help our people get there too. Different form and function.
7. Change management has always embodied empathy
From where I sit, #changemanagement has always embodied #empathy, because our focus has always been on helping employees through their own personal change journeys. The #Prosci "10 Aspects of Change Impact" gives us another lens and tool for adding even more empathy to our change work by focusing on how an employee shows up differently each day after a change is implemented with a framework to help us “name it to tame it.”
8. Budgets test active vs passive buy in
"Don't tell me your priorities; show me your budget." A way to test if our sponsors and project leaders are passively bought in to #changemanagement ("sure, that sounds good") or actively bought in to #changemanagement ("what do I need to do to capture our people-dependent ROI?"). Insight inspiration credit: Dan Gamble
9. A wise CFO’s advice on investing in change management
A wise CFO once said: "We need to start investing at least as much in change management as we are willing to put into contingency budgets." Scott McAllister nails it in this blog - sharing why #sponsorship is critical for building a robust change capability along with four tips for growing #changemanagement capability.
10. Answering “so, what do you do”?
Old friend recently asked “so, what is it that you do?” - here is the new answer I tried out #changemanagement “I help people succeed in change (pause) by helping their organizations do a better job of preparing, equipping, and supporting them through those changes - which actually results in better initiative and organizational outcomes too!” What do you think?
Bonus #11 - Change management is meaningful work because it is the right way to treat our people!
It’s not the project type that makes your work matter - it’s the #people that you help succeed on their own change journeys that make #changemanagement meaningful work. At least that’s my story!
I hope you enjoyed these musings! Please pass along to your fellow change champions and share your takeaways below. Thank you for your continued engagement on LinkedIn and for pushing to put your people first!
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Tim Creasey | Chief Innovation Officer | Prosci
@timcreasey | https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/timcreasey
Tim is a dynamic presenter, researcher, and thought-leader on managing the people side of projects and initiatives to deliver organizational results and outcomes. His work forms the foundation of the largest body of knowledge in the world on change management. Through conference keynotes, presentation, webinars, articles, and tools, he has advanced the discipline of change management by moving it out of the "soft and fuzzy" realm toward a structured, rigorous approach for driving benefit realization and value creation on projects. Tim coauthored the book Change Management: The People Side of Change and led Prosci's last eight benchmarking studies. He was instrumental in the development of Prosci's integrated approach to change management and has recently worked to support leading organizations in building change agility and capability as a core competency.
Sustainability | Consultant | Strategist
5 年Insightful post, Tim, 'people dependent portion of an initiative's expected ROI...' really resonates with me. The definition broadens the conversation out from default perceptions which can form a hurdle when agreeing programme scope, "...just training and comms isn't it?".
Keynote Speaker & YouTuber
5 年Fantastic information on change management! Thank you. Your Tim Talks video was great!
Head of Delivery at The Expert Project
5 年Always curious to see what other people think of change management - fantastic.
Advisor and Author in Leading Change and Managing Operations
5 年Hi Tim, I appreciate the sentiment and messages. However, my concern is that given its influence, Prosci may inadvertently be causing confusion by 'redefining' general terms to reflect its views of good or bad practice. For example, practitioners in the field are already meaning different things by the term 'change-management'. Those trained by Prosci take it to mean "the people-dependent portion of change" as defined in 1 above, while others use it more broadly to reflect the course of change as a whole (what is changing and how). Similarly, in 6 above you redefine 'change-leadership' to limit it to decision-making, but to others 'leadership' implies leading people, not just making decisions.? Can I please gently challenge Prosci to consider wrestling for a clearer way to commend its views without redefining general terms and causing potential confusion in the field? Thanks and best wishes, Andy?
Senior Behavior Change Strategist | Trusted Executive Partner | Innovation Mindset | Adaptable Solutions Focus
5 年Penelope?- thought you might enjoy this post.? Lots of great info in one location.