Creating a Change Management Plan

The change management plan combines aspects of both strategic and tactical planning. Step 1 and 2 help prepare for change. Step 3 creates the change management strategy and step 4, 5 and 6 guide the creation of the tactical plan, its implementation and learning;

• STEP 1; Prepare to change
• Communicate sense of urgency and need for change
• Assess readiness for change
• STEP 2; Create vision and build commitment
• Design the desired end-state
• Build stakeholder  commitment
• STEP 3; Create the change strategy
• Assess the impact
• Identify common themes
• Create the change strategy
• STEP 4; Design the Tactical Plan
• Identify specific change initiatives
• Create a tactical plan for implementation change
• STEP 5; Implement the Tactical Plan
• Implement the tactical plan
• Monitor the status of plan implementation
• STEP 6; Learn and Adjust
• Gather feedback on plan implementation
• Modify the change plan as needed, including time frame.

CHANGE has 3 elements... Content, Process and People

Strategic Plan = What to do?
Tactical Plan = How to do?

Change Management Skills

It is important to understand each of these change management skills and the behaviors and attitudes that are part of each one:

1. Adaptability
• Takes a positive approach to change
• Open to new ideas
• Willing to change course, as needed
2. Strategic focus
• Seeks to understand the big picture
• Understands the big impact of business factors on the organization
• Able to translate business strategy into change outcomes
3. Results focus
• Works for measurable change
• Takes a goal-oriented approach to change
• keeps others focused on the change goals
4. Foster a collaborative approach
• Works to partner with others
• Seeks to involve others in decisions that impact them
• Seeks to build consensus
5. Facilitates openness and understanding
• Wants to hear what others say
• Helps others speak with candor
• Tests assumptions to understand deeper issues
6. Encourage learning
• Responds quickly to changes in direction
• Helps others recover from failure and get back on track
• Extracts lessons learned from change

Managing the scope and speed of change - illustration

In a case where an organization needs to do a drastic change on the followings;

• Business strategy - develop state-of-the-art technologies that support customer's need.
• Organizational capabilities - Upgrade employee skills and change skill mix
• Culture - become our customers most valued competitive technology resource

The Change Leader may need to identify the following activities as part of their change management plan;

1. Work with customers to understand their strategic goals and how technology can support their accomplishment.
2. Change the mission of the technology departments by expanding it to reflect the pursuit of the state-of-the-art technologies
3. Reorganize several technology department
4. Outplace engineers with limited technical skills
5. Reengineer key R&D processes to reduce the time it takes to deliver a technology solution to the customer.
6. Assign cross functional technology teams to work on specific customer solutions

The above change initiatives might probably takes 18 months to implement these change...

Strategic Pressure Points (Pressure to Change)

Change Leaders identify the strategic pressure points that are driving the need for change. Strategic Pressure Points require an organization to change some aspect of the way it is doing business. Change drivers that create strategic pressure points include:

• Environmental factors
• Marketplace factors
• Technology
• Customer needs
• Business diversification
• Expansion
• Need for increased profitability
• Acquisition of new capability
• Retention or acquisition of intellectual capital

Partners in Change

1. Line Managers
The line manager's role begins with setting the strategic direction and helping the organization understand the business case for change. The line manager's role also includes:

• Communicating the reasons for change
• Leading the way in shifting attitudes and behaviors
• Helping employees shift attitudes, behaviors and habits
• Monitoring how well the change is being implemented
• Working with human resources to design the change management strategy and plan
• Helping human resource clarify and sequence change initiatives

2. Human Resource Manager
The HR Managers play a major role in change management facilitation at all phases of the change process, from inception and implementation. HR roles also includes:

• Assessing change readiness
• Helping diagnose the impact of change
• Helping employees shift attitudes and behaviors
• Working with line managers to develop a change management plan and sequence change initiatives
• Helping to keep change focused and on track
• Monitoring how well the change is being implemented.

In summary, Organizations experience 5 types of change:

1. Evolutionary Adaptation = incremental and slow
2. Developmental change =  an improvement on current ways of doing things
3. Transitional change = the creation and implementation of something completely new
4. Drastic action = change that is forced on the organization
5. TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE = change that requires the organization to completely change how it does business

Line managers and HR managers need to partner in planning ad leading organizational change activities
Line managers play a critical roles in designing the direction and scope of change. They ensure that change initiatives will address the competitive force driving change,
HR Managers help manage the cultural, behavioral and infrastructural issues that are important to successful change.

The Role of the Change Leader

Change leaders make sure they do certain things in planning and managing organizational change. Successful change leaders take responsibility for:

• Understanding the need for change
• Assessing the organization's readiness for change
• Designing strategies for increasing change readiness
• Managing the scope and speed of change
• Understanding stakeholders needs and their intellectual and emotional responses to change
• Communicating the purpose and direction of change
• Using communication to build commitment to change
• Understanding and dealing with resistance to change
• Creating a change management strategy and plan
• Demonstrating sound change management skills
• Making sure change initiatives are aligned with strategic direction
• Helping the organization learn from change
• Keeping change initiatives on track.

7 Reasons HR Is Often Misunderstood

-Susan Hertfield-

I don’t pretend to speak for every HR department worldwide, but the HR staff I know are committed to both their employees and their company. They avoid causing employees pain. Here are reasons why employees might perceive the situation differently.

• The HR staff person is caught daily in a balancing act between the role of employee advocate and the role of company business partner and advocate. And, no, the employee doesn’t often see or understand that the HR person is playing two roles.
  
  They gauge the HR person by their affect on the employee’s need. As an example, the employee wants HR to make an exception for him; the employee doesn’t realize that an exception for him begins to set a precedent for how the company must treat other employees – employees who may be less deserving of an exception.


• All information about employees is confidential. Even when the HR staff person handles an issue, whether the issue involved disciplinary measures or just a conversation, the steps taken and the outcomes are confidential.
  
  An HR employee can tell the complaining employee that the issue was addressed. Because of employee confidentiality, they cannot reveal more. This can leave the complaining employee believing their issue was not addressed. (The outcome of a formal, written complaint, as in sexual harassment charges, is disclosed.)


• HR staff members need documented evidence that a problem exists. Witnesses are helpful, too, as is more than one employee experiencing the same problem. It is difficult to take action based on one employee’s word, especially if the other party denies the problem.


• What an employee may see as unreasonable behavior on the part of a manager or another employee, HR may find within acceptable bounds of organizational behavior and expectations. The employees may have a personality or work style conflict. The boss may supervise an independent employee more closely than desired. HR can talk with all parties, but often, no one is wrong.


• When an employee doesn’t like her job or work goals or experiences a conflict with her supervisor’s management style, HR can’t always find the employee a new job. Additionally, because of the cost of employee onboarding and training, the organization is likely to have policies about how often an employee can change positions. Indeed, proving yourself in the current job is the fastest path to a coveted new job.


• HR doesn’t know about the promises you say your manager made to you about a raise, a promotion, special time off, or a rewarding assignment, unless the promise was documented in your performance development plan.
  
  You are welcome to complain to HR if you have addressed the issue with your manager. But, the end story is likely your word against the manager’s word. Is it possible you misunderstood your manager? If not be wary about promises made – when he has demonstrated he doesn’t keep his promises. Work with HR on an internal transfer.


• HR is not always in charge of making the decision. In fact, the decision you don't like may have been made by their boss or the company president. Good, company-oriented HR people won't blame other managers publicly for decisions with which they may disagree. And, they won't bad-mouth the decisions of their boss or other company managers, so you may never know where the decision was made.

So, an unresponsive, unhelpful HR office that avoids helping employees with their problems is not always the case. (Though I know from my readers that such organizations do exist, let's hope they're rare.) There are legitimate reasons why HR cannot fulfill every employee's wishes.

If the HR staff listens, communicates actively, and informs the employee why a decision is made or an action not taken, employees are much less likely to write asking how to solve their HR horror stories. This information should help your HR staff be less misunderstood by employees.

A Typical example of Leading Organisational Change

ISSUES /TRENDS

• Low operations efficiency



• Low productivity



• Lack of creativity / ideas from shopfloor/frontlines



• Lack of competencies

TYPES OF CHANGE

• Development Change

CHANGE DRIVERS

• Acquisition of new capabilities



• Retention of Intellectual Capital

STRATEGIC PRESSURE POINTS (SPP)

a. Organisational Capabilities:

- To roll out a Small Group Activities (SGA) to complement Six Sigma initiatives

- Train executives and supervisors who are assigned as SGA Team Leaders on the subject of Continuous Improvement Tools. e.g. 7 QC Tool, QCC projects.

b. Coordinating System

- Introduce and implement competency based recruitment and selection tool for new talent.

c. Culture

- Launch creativity and innovation month in year XXXX . And, to reward to those who give new/good ideas.

CHANGE EQUATION = A+B+C > Z(R)

A = Individual/company/group level of dissatisfaction of the status quo

• 360 degree involvement of staff on the idea generation



• Company wide 10% OPEX reduction exercise

B = Shared Picture (Vision)

"To be the leader in healthcare in the market we shoose to serve"

Strategy

1. Roll out SGA programs



2. Launch creativity and innovation program



3. Introcude and implement competency based recruitment & selection of new talent

C = Acceptable / Doable (1st action steps)

1. Industry benchmarking on productivity



2. Training on SGA for leaders and members



3. Formulate creativity and innovation reward/incentive for excellent and doable ideas from employees



4. Establish core and leadership competency framework

Z = The Cost (Finance, time, Stress)

1. Formation of SGA Team at shopfloor - matrix reporting



2. Innovation month (cost of executing the program)



3. Cost of SGA training



4. Cost of establishing Core and Leadership Competencies framework

8 Steps to Transforming your Organisation

1. Establish sense of urgency


2. Forming an powerful guiding coalition


3. Creating a vision


4. Communicating the vision


5. Empowering others to act on the vision


6. Planning for and Creating a Short-Term Wins


7. Don't Let Up - Consolidate improvement & producing still more change...


8. Make it stick - Institutuionalizing New Approaches

The Process of Change

Unfreeze;

Analyze current situation

• Remove resistance



• Motivate change

Change;

Introduce new bahavior

• Manage control



• Manage transition

Refreeze;

Stabilize new practice

• Manage power



• Institutionalize change

Dealing with Resistance to Change

• Working with stakeholders



• Conduct stakeholders analysis



• Dealing with response to change (Intelectual and emotional)

Individual Resistance

1. Denial



2. Resistance



3. Exploration



4. Commitment

Steps in Intellectual & Emotional Response to Change

1. Listen



2. Explore & Evaluate



3. Make a Decision



4. Take Action

Building stakeholders support through communication

1. Share the change vision



2. Build understanding



3. Clarify personal meaning



4. Build commitment

Note:

We need to establish COMMON GROUND RULES or FRAMEWORK for your team

Change Management Skills:

• Adaptability



• Strategic focus



• Results Focus



• Foster Collaborative Approach



• Facilitate Openness & understanding



• Encourage learning

Note:

Facilitating Openness & Understanding requires an ability to;

1. Be prepared and focused



2. Hear in all



3. Clarify the message



4. Confirm the message



5. Move forward