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Building organizational change

management competency
From the "Five tips" tutorial series
During the summer of 2009, Prosci will be releasing a - Tutorial highlights -
number of "Five tips" tutorials. These tutorials will provide
simple, actionable steps to improving change management
application. Each tutorial will focus on a particular element Five tips for: building
of change management, including: competency

 Five tips for: Succeeding in change management 1. Treat it as a project -


 Five tips for: Sizing your change management building the competency
efforts requires a set of planned
 Five tips for: Better communications actions and someone to
 Five tips for: Managing resistance
manage them
This "Five tips" tutorial looks at building organizational
2. Treat it as a change - you
change management competency . The tips come are asking people to do their
directly from practitioner experience and benchmarking job differently; it requires
data from Prosci's six benchmarking studies conducted change management to
over the last 12 years (Note: the 2009 edition of Best deploy change management
Practices in Change Management will be released in
September).
3. Utilize a holistic strategy
- actions are needed in the
  leadership, project, skill,
structure and process areas
4. Dedicate a team - a
Five tips for: Building representative team needs to
organizational lead the effort to deploy
change management
change management 5. Secure sponsorship - like
competency any organization-wide
change, deploying change
1. Treat it as a project management needs effective
2. Treat it as a change and well-placed sponsorship
3. Utilize a holistic strategy
4. Dedicate a team
5. Secure sponsorship

* Note:  Defining "organizational change management competency" - Change


management is defined as the principles, tools and processes for managing the people
side of a particular organizational change in order to meet objectives. It involves
appreciating and facilitating the individual behavioral and work flow changes that a
particular initiative requires - whether it is a process change, a new technology or a
reorganization. Conversely, organizational change management competency moves
beyond application on a particular, defined change. It includes the application of
common tools and processes on numerous initiatives as well as the building of
individual competencies in senior leaders, managers, supervisors, employees and
project teams. The result is a strategic capability of being effective at introducing
change. Prosci calls this "Enterprise Change Management" - rolling out the skills and
processes to effectively manage the people side of change across an entire
organization.

1. Treat it as a project
Deploying change management across an organization is not a simple undertaking. It
does not occur as a single announcement or decree by senior leaders. And it does not
occur by simply training people about how to manage change. When you build
organizational competencies in change management, you are fundamentally
changing how the organization handles change.

To successfully build an organizational competency – not just change management


competency but any organizational competency – it is critical to view this work as a
project. The project needs structure. It needs someone to manage the project. And it
needs a team to evaluate, design and deploy the approach. “Change management
deployment” should be viewed as and managed as a project.

Prosci has developed the Enterprise Change Management Deployment Process with a
set of steps for designing a deployment effort. Prosci’s ECM Deployment Process is
shown below.

Prosci's ECM Deployment Process

As you think about change management deployment as a project, there are steps for
vision, strategy and implementation that guide the project. In the vision stage, the
team taking on change management competency building defines the future state –
what will it look like when the organization becomes competent at managing change –
and assess the current state – evaluating the levers and risks facing the deployment
effort. Through the strategy and implementation phases, options are evaluated and
decisions are made on how to structure and sequence the deployment effort. This
work culminates in a project plan, just like any other project that impacts the
organization.

When change management deployment is not treated as a project, there can be a lot of
activity with little progress. Direction is needed to guide the deployment efforts and
ensure alignment toward a future state of being change competent (or durable or
flexible).

Are you treating change management deployment as a project?

2. Treat it as a change
Not only should change management competency building be viewed as a project, it
must also be viewed as a change to how people work. When you ask senior leaders
to begin taking on the role of sponsor, they must change how they do their jobs. When
you ask project teams to begin applying change management processes and integrating
“people side” activities into their project plans, they must change how they do their jobs.
When you ask front-line managers and supervisors to become effective coaches of their
direct reports in times of change, they must change how they do their jobs. Applying
change management impacts the day-to-day work of many people in the
organization, and you need to take this change into consideration.

To say it another way, it takes change management to deploy change management.


Consider “applying change management” as a change you are trying to bring about.
This effort will require both organizational change management – a structured
approach and set of tools (like a communications plan, sponsor roadmap, coaching
plan, training plan and resistance management plan) – and individual change
management.

Prosci’s ADKAR® Model describes five key building blocks of any successful change –
Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. In the change management
competency building context, this would translate as:

 Awareness of the need for change management


 Desire to participate and support change management
 Knowledge on how to apply change management
 Ability to implement required change management skills and behaviors
 Reinforcement to sustain change management application
Be careful - many change management practitioners have made the mistake of ignoring
change management when they work to deploy it. When you take on the challenge of
building change management competency in the organization, you must utilize change
management to improve the speed of adoption, utilization and proficiency of applying
change management.

Are you managing the people side of change management deployment?

3. Utilize a holistic strategy


Building an organizational competency to manage change does not occur by simply
training some people. It does not happen simply by weaving change management
activities into a project lifecycle. To be successful, a holistic and structured approach
much be used. Prosci’s research indicates five strategic areas that must be leveraged
to build the organizational change management competency. The image below shows
Prosci’s ECM Strategy Map:

Specific tactics need to be developed in each of the five areas shown in the strategy
map. There must be effective leadership in place driving the change management
deployment efforts. Decisions must be made on how to attach change management to
projects in the organization. People will need to build new skills – “managing change”
is a new and emerging competency and you must help people in the organization build
that competency. Change management needs an “organizational footprint” – a
structure to support change management application by people throughout the
organization. Finally, business processes that already exist in the organization should
be adapted to incorporate change management – including performance management
processes and project launch processes.

While the five areas seem simple, there should be a well thought-out, sequenced set of
tactics under each of the five areas. A holistic approach ensures that energy is not
expended simply on getting change management started, but that its application in the
organization is long-lasting and sustained.

Is your approach to deploying change management holistic and structured?

4. Dedicate a team
Someone has to do the work described above. A team needs to be in place to manage
the project of “deploying change management” - to build out the change management
plans necessary to manage the people side of this change and to develop the specific
tactics that will ultimately bring change management to life in the organization.

Effective teams are representative of the organization and how changes occur in the
organization. It is not adequate to simply have a small team of specialists in one
functional area. Prosci's research shows that change management should have a
presence in Human Resources, the Project Management Office and in business
functions or units that cause change (such as IT or a Process Improvement group). The
lines of business should also be involved, as managers and supervisors throughout the
organization will also be impacted. The team that is deciding how to roll out change
management should also have representation from these different groups so the set of
tactics developed are applicable.

Do you have a representative team leading change management deployment?

5. Secure sponsorship
Although sponsorship is the last in our five tips, it is certainly number one in terms of
impact on success. Building the organizational competency – becoming flexible and
durable as an organization – requires considerable work and causes considerable
change. It impacts how projects are conceived and launched. It impacts how project
teams move forward in their work. It impacts how senior leaders, middle managers,
front-line supervisors and employees see themselves in relation to change and how
they behave. With this size of enterprise-wide effort impacting nearly the entire
employee base, sponsorship must be effective, active, engaged and well-
positioned.
According to Prosci’s benchmarking research, there are three primary roles of sponsors
in times of change – 1) participate actively and visibly throughout the entire project, 2)
build a coalition with key leaders and managers and 3) communicate directly with
employees. Research indicates that the more effective sponsors are at fulfilling these
three roles, the more successful the change effort will be. Why would the project
called “deploying change management” be any different?

Building change management competency requires the same active and visible
engagement by senior leaders as any other organizational effort.

Do you have the sponsorship necessary to deploy an organization-wide change?

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