Change Management - An Essential Skillset For The Future
Was there a time when you found yourself having difficulty coping with a change at work?
Have you experienced resistance from your loved ones when you asked for changes to be made at home?
If your answer is yes to either or both of the questions, knowing more about change management (CM) could help you deal with these situations!
Change is happening all around us. It can be at work or at home. And it can happen to us or be initiated by us. As the saying goes, change is the only constant. Yet, why is it that we are only troubled by some of our experiences, given that change is affecting every aspect of our lives?
To put it simply, the crux lies in how we interpret the process – is it meaningful, beneficial or easy for us. If so, there is motivation for us to welcome the change and move on smoothly. More often than not, the process is painful and unwelcome as we do not understand the purpose and/or there is no guidance on how we can adapt to it. This is where CM comes into play.
What is Change Management?
“Change must start from the individual. And the individual must want and feel ready to make such change.”
- Efrat Cybulkiewicz
CM provides a framework to deal with transformation, and it can be applied at various scale (from the individual to departments, organisations etc.). Fundamentally, CM first focuses on the smallest yet most important level – the individual. For any big and meaningful change to happen, individual participation is essential. However, the process and effects of change is so varied across individuals, there is no one size fit all solution (unfortunately). Thankfully, CM provides a systematic way to diagnose and formulate a suitable approach for a person to accept and adopt to the transformation. Only when individuals are on board, can we achieve collective and successful progress.
Consequences of Poor/ Lack of Change Management
Why is CM so important? According to a research led by the Project Management Institute, we are transforming to project based economy. This means that the days of repetitive and mundane work processes are a thing of the past. Job descriptions will gradually lose its significance because organisations are expected to constantly initiate multiple projects of different nature across their business units in order to create value for their clients. Organisations are also expected to concurrently develop and implement new work processes that leverage on technology and automation in order to keep up with the times and stay competitive. The work environment will continue to transform and become more dynamic. If employees are unable to cope with the changes, this will translate to low take up rate for new work processes, or incorrect usage of new systems. This will inevitably lead to low work morale and productivity.
Let us use an analogy of upgrading our digital camera to a DSLR camera to illustrate the consequences of poor or lack of CM. The primary intent for the camera upgrade was for us to take better photos. However, without proper guidance and training, we would not be able to maximise the capabilities of the DSLR camera. This could result in us taking photos with poorer qualities compared to those taken by the digital camera, which is easy to use due to its automated settings. After struggling to use the DSLR camera, we might just revert back to the digital camera which we are familiar with. This results in a waste of resources – capital used for the purchase of the DSLR, and the opportunity cost of unused professional equipment. And for those of us who persisted in using the DSLR, there will be an extended transitory period where the quality of our work (photos) is poor as we gradually accumulate the expertise to use the camera efficiently.
With poor or a lack of CM, we can expect:
- Low take up rate of new and better work processes
- Low return on investment
- Long period of lower work productivity due to transitory phase
In an ideal situation, we would want to be proficient in the use of the DSLR camera the moment we have our hands on one and immediately ditch our old digital camera. The process of change would then be instantaneous and painless. But the reality is, change will take time and effort even with the best CM efforts.
Concluding
The world we live in is undergoing a phase of rapid change, fuelled by the advancement in technology and AI. And these changes at the macro scale has been trickling down to us at the individual level. Although adaptability has been one of our forte as a species, I believe that the magnitude and frequency of change that is bound to come our way will only increase with time. (If you have not checked out my posts on how we can predict future scenarios using futures thinking, access them here, here and here!)
Therefore, it would be necessary to equip ourselves with the knowledge to cope with the transformations that are happening to us. And by extension, we will also know how to create/initiate successful change. This empowers us with the agility and flexibility to handle new and challenging situations both in our private and professional lives.
Keen to find out more about CM? In the next post, I will share with you a simple framework to monitor the phases of change at the individual level, and understand what are the steps required to facilitate progress. So before you are forced to change (which is a painful process), let’s take the initiative and be ready for it instead!