Welcome

Building a commitment to change in organisations

Welcome to the eighth edition of our quarterly newsletter -
People-Centred Implementation

Over the past three years, we've been collecting data on how successful organisations have been in executing major changes, the key drivers and barriers to change and the actions leaders must take to improve their success rates.  The results - which have featured in past newsletters - have proved to be interesting and valuable for change leaders trying to create real behavioural change.

In this issue, we'll use survey data - gathered from over 600 line managers, change agents and project managers - to shed light on how organisations can build a higher level of employee commitment to change.

If you'd like to take part in our ongoing survey and haven't attended one of our programmes, please click here.  All Responses are confidential and your name and organisation will not be disclosed.

David Miller
Managing Director of Changefirst
Tel: +44 (0)1444 450777
david.miller@changefirst.com

"Changefirst®, building sustainable change capability inside your organisation"

People-Centred Implementation Methodology Transfer

What is PCI™?

People-Centred Implementation (PCI™) is a change implementation application that combines a disciplined process with a robust set of tools to transform how people operate and behave in an organisation.

A recent survey of ours - called The Unplayed Piano - demonstrated that only a third of organisations formally evaluate the success of their major change implementations.  Yet if there is no evaluation, there is no learning from the experience and thus there is little chance of improvement in the future.

What does organisational change history tell us?

Our change legacy survey data suggests that after implementation only 37 per cent of employees will actually be committed to any major change.  The other 25 per cent will still be resisting the change and 38 per cent will accept the change but need more support from the organisation to help them change their behaviour.

Commitment stage post-Implementation

What does it take to build commitment?

The survey data is very clear about what it takes to move employees from Resistance/Acceptance to Commitment.  It's important that the organisation focuses on:

• Ensuring users/adapters recognise the need for change.  There should be a visible problem or opportunity that the change will address.  There is no doubt that for commitment to take place, people must feel a strong personal need to change.
• Ramping up change agents' and key sponsors' efforts to ensure informal influencers in the organisation advocate for the change.  During the transition, people need support and encouragement from their line managers.  This should reinforce the formal communications coming through the hierarchy.
• Communicating effectively.  Communication continues to play a key role throughout the change process but it appears that more personalised face-to-face contact, with opportunities for discussion, seems particularly important when attempting to move people to commitment.
• Enabling this communication to be carried out by local managers.  There is a high need for middle and front-line managers to role model the new behaviours and provide the necessary support to employees who are transitioning through change.
• Ensuring that people continue to be involved in the change.  When the change is reaching implementation and people begin to accept the need for change, it is easy for agents to become complacent.  But this must be avoided.  People will want to give feedback, discuss glitches and suggest improvements.  Cutting this involvement off often leaves people complying but not committing to the change.

What skills does this require?

To motivate and mobilise people to change, organisations must improve the change leadership skills of middle and senior managers.  These managers need to be able to predict the true impact on people of major change programmes and they must ensure that change management is effectively resourced.

In turn, line managers, project managers and change agents need to be trained so that they can:

• Help senior executives play an active leadership role that ensures people support the change.
• Help people in the organisation to see a real personal need for change and to understand the change vision.
• Identify the change stages and activities where high levels of involvement are required - and facilitate this involvement so that commitment is built.
• Build plans that ensure that people have the necessary skills and motivation to meet the new demands the change brings.
• Work with leaders and other employees to ensure the change is 'biting', where it most needs to.
• Develop follow-up plans to accelerate the acceptance of change.

How might you effectively evaluate change?

If you want to become more effective at evaluating change, ask the following key questions which get to the crux of the whole issue of people-related change:

• Did users increase their performance levels?
• Did we develop sufficient commitment in users?
• Did users change their behaviour?
• Did we provide enough personal support to users?
• What is the change legacy left in the organisation post-implementation?
• What is the level of change capacity in the organisation post-implementation?