Four Must-Have Practices for Successful

Organizational Change
FOUNDATIONAL Refreshed: 4 December 2018 | Published: 6 July 2017 ID: G00333606

Analyst(s): Elise Olding, Suzanne Adnams

Organizational change isn't a mystery, but does require mastery of some

"easier said than done" practices. CIOs will benefit from using these
practices and instilling them in their organizations.

FOUNDATIONAL DOCUMENT
This research is reviewed periodically for accuracy. Last reviewed on 4 December 2018.

Key Challenges
■ Organizations don't take a methodical, transparent and repeatable approach to organizational
change.
■ Organizational change activities are started too late and not integrated into transformation
activities.
■ Conflicting messages about what is changing can splinter the audience and create unnecessary
anxiety that will ultimately derail a change effort.
■ Top-down messages that are too general leave much open to interpretation, and do not provide
enough direction to enable members of the organization to take specific action.

Recommendations
CIOs involved in mastering organizational or cultural change dynamics must:

■ Adopt an existing organizational change methodology, but tailor it to integrate into your
organization's culture with successive use. Start organizational change planning and
communication as soon as a change is identified.
■ Create a compelling vision that can be shared in a story to inspire and motivate desire for the
change. Repeat the vision and story through multimedia channels to ensure it is received by
different stakeholder groups.
 ■ Develop a structured communication plan to synchronize all communication by assigning
specific activities and creating common messages to reinforce.
■ Build a peer advocate network. Identify and coach peer advocates to adapt the top-level story
by isolating specific messages that will be meaningful for their stakeholder group.

Table of Contents

Introduction............................................................................................................................................ 2
Analysis.................................................................................................................................................. 3
Adopt an Organizational Change Methodology................................................................................. 3
Create a Compelling Vision Shared by Everyone...............................................................................5
Develop a Structured Communication Plan and Strategy..................................................................5
Build a Peer Advocate Network to Get the Message Out..................................................................7
There Is No Silver Bullet — This Is a Journey.............................................................................. 9
Gartner Recommended Reading............................................................................................................ 9

List of Figures

Figure 1. Must-Have Organizational Change Practices........................................................................... 3

Figure 2. Measuring the Commitment Cycle: Five Questions for Leaders................................................ 7

Introduction

This research is a companion to "Avoid These Five Organizational Change Pitfalls." Use
them together to bolster the success of your change program.

The ability to change technology, particularly using cloud services and agile, has paved the way for
rapid implementation of new business solutions. The ability to introduce new elements, techniques
and solutions into the enterprise is also driving unprecedented change impacts on organizations,
culture and people. Keeping pace with these changes is proving a challenge for many organizations.

Interactions with Gartner clients and conference attendees over a three-year period have defined a
trend of must-have practices that fuel successful change efforts. These enterprises have moved
away from a top-down waterfall view of change to one that is participatory and iterative and
experimental. Moving to an experimental, agile, learning organization emphasizes the need for
must-have change practices and these organizations are teaching their employees the skills they

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 will need to help their organizations become more "change fit." Senior IT leaders and change
leaders can use these practices to:

■ Boost the effectiveness of their organizational change and communication activities.

■ Build the capacity to change faster in their enterprises.
Figure 1. Must-Have Organizational Change Practices

Source: Gartner (July 2017)

Analysis
Adopt an Organizational Change Methodology
Organizational change is a demanding discipline that requires in-depth skills and methods. These
practices start at the inception of the transformation, and wrap up after new work methods and
behaviors have taken hold and are delivering expected outcomes. A methodology provides a
common language, enables an understanding of risks, and defines actions, responsibility and
deliverables. To scale and reliably address the "people challenges" associated with transformation,
it is essential to adopt an organizational change methodology. Ad hoc usage and developing a plan
using a hodgepodge of techniques will not move you forward or develop the long-term
organizational resilience needed.

Assess the available methodologies, and select one to use as a foundation across all projects,
taking into account cultural differences for global enterprises. The Prosci ADKAR Model —
awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement — is a methodology that is used by many
1 2
Gartner clients. Kotter's "eight steps to change" is another. Start using a methodology on small

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 projects. Debrief, focusing on lessons learned and what to improve for next time, with a focus on
tailoring the methodology to your organization and culture.

Think beyond the immediate change effort and assess organizational change needs to keep pace
with technology changes and competitive challenges. Develop a mix of organizational change and
communication techniques that can be tailored and used for all projects and programs. The
application of techniques may differ by geographic regions and cultural norms, but the same
objectives should apply — instilling the desired process, technology behavior changes. This will
enable the organizational resilience needed for digital business, and for thriving in times of
uncertainty.

Organizational change activities range from identifying the stakeholders that will be impacted, to
nurturing and supporting new ways of working once the change is complete. A change program's
success hinges on behavioral and process change. These change activities won't happen unless
they are part of the plan, with resources funded, and activities defined and managed. Without the
often overlooked behavioral change, the overall changes to work will not happen, and the intended
benefits are quickly eroded. Along with the negative financial impact is the much more dangerous
impact of eroding the trust and confidence of employees and external stakeholders.

The techniques supporting the human aspects of a change are often not properly funded, because
leadership frequently believes these activities are "nice to have." CIOs and executive business
sponsors commonly associate organizational change tactics with training activities that happen too
late in the program. Embed organizational change activities into any effort that will change the way
people work, reporting structures or technology.

Appoint an experienced organizational change lead. Alternatively, hire a consultant with these skills,
and insist on transfer of this knowledge to an internal change leader. You will ultimately want to
build these capabilities, and digital business transformation will require an experienced insider who
is familiar with your culture. Note that initially, utilization may be a part-time role. Since change
demands can grow during the life cycle of the initiative, a resource may cover multiple change
efforts. Planning, in particular, is time-consuming and will require dedicated resources, or the vital
subsequent activities will not happen. Partner with HR, because it has many great skills in this area
and will be a good partner as you grow this competency.

Identify impacted stakeholders early in the program planning phase. This information shapes the
engagement and communication plan and most of the subsequent activities. It also informs risk
identification. At Gartner, we commonly see the risks associated with a lack of organizational
adoption poorly understood, and seldom identified in any way that can be mitigated. This is where
many change programs unknowingly take a turn onto the road to failure. You can start small and
build your change capability. Use "Three Essential First Steps for Leading Transformational Change"
for areas of initial focus.

Actions for CIOs and change leaders:

■ Start planning organizational change activities early. Create a change workstream with identified
deliverables, assigned responsibilities, risks and mitigation plan, resources and a target budget
(see "Integrate Organizational Change Into the Strategic Planning Process").

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 ■ Identify all stakeholders, paying attention to those who may not be obvious. Use "A Practical
Guide to Stakeholder Management" as a guide to develop an engagement and communication
strategy.
■ Continue to build your capabilities in the organizational change arena. Create a toolbox of
techniques that are proven within your corporate culture, including the nuances needed to
support a global footprint.

Create a Compelling Vision Shared by Everyone

If you don't know where you are and where you want to go, how can you hope to get there? As
simple as this concept may be, many enterprises embark on a change journey without clearly
stating their vision and validating that there is alignment with the vision. Many organizations have a
strong tendency to jump to the tactics and solution. Without a shared vision, it's easy to lose focus,
expand scope, waste resources and leave the organization feeling like there is a lack of direction.
Trust and confidence in leadership begin to erode, which can lead to more serious problems as the
effort proceeds.

To achieve the benefits from a change effort, it is critical to develop and communicate a unified,
consistent message. This starts with the leadership and executive sponsors working together
toward a common vision that can be captured in a shared story. A good story paints a compelling
view of the future, and sets realistic expectations of what the journey will entail. Creating a story
draws others in. Include the critical component of "Why change?" Capture this, and start every
meeting with the story. This cannot be overcommunicated. Use "Compose the From/To/Because
Story to Convey a Behavior Change Journey" as a guide to design the story and share the change
journey. (See also "Storytelling in Three Acts: A Guide to Persuasive Communications.")

Actions for CIOs and change leaders:

■ Start by getting the business and IT executives aligned with what the vision is. Create a story
and co-develop the vision with the group (see "ESCAPE the Past: Six Steps to Change
Leadership").
■ Test for understanding at every level in your organization and listen for different interpretations.
Use the questions from "Five Questions to Inform CIOs of Organizational Change
Commitment." Make changes to the way you are communicating, or provide more storyline as
3
needed. Pay particular attention to middle management understanding and buy-in.
■ Engage the organization to interpret the vision into what this will mean for it. This helps
personalize the message and makes the vision real.

Develop a Structured Communication Plan and Strategy

Now that you have a common vision, the next step is to ensure that all the various forms of
communication are identified and synchronized. In a client interaction, a number of PowerPoint
presentations, status reports and charts were shared with the authors. All represented some view of
the company's IT change program. In some cases, the deliverables, descriptions of actions and

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 dates were not the same. (There were no dates/version control information on the documents.)
These documents will be seen by different people, including the board level, who will all have
different understandings, leaving little hope to align common expectations.

A major component of an organizational change plan is the communication plan. It is the visible
representation of the program. Develop a comprehensive communication plan that is constantly
evolving as more information becomes available. The plan needs to invite participation, encourage
employee engagement and solicit honest input. Use "Effective Communications: Stakeholder
Analysis" as a guide.

Consider there are many forms of communication — communications to executives, program

sponsors, stakeholders, the transformation team, customers, partners, suppliers and general
employee communications, among others. All of these must be coordinated, because many of
these groups are interconnected.

Plan for and assign someone to create and maintain the communication plan, and direct,
coordinate, write and disseminate communications. This may be the organizational change lead or
someone with communication background. Change programs that span multiple years may require
a team. While this is an expense, a number of Gartner clients have overcome this hurdle by proving
the value. Thus, they have continued to obtain executive support for this role.

Poor consistency in communications contributes to a lack of trust and confidence in the ability of
those involved in the program to deliver intended results. If the team can't consistently
communicate, what might their capabilities be to deliver a complicated, multiyear change effort?
Pay attention to the details and build the trust you will need. See "Toolkit: Identify Stakeholders
Impacted by Changes for Better Business Outcomes." Use it as a template to begin the
communication plan.

Use video, posters, social networks, broadcast banners, crowdsourcing, contests, informal small-
group discussions, town-hall-style meetings and other interactive methods, such as games and
contests, to impart information. Be mindful about interjecting interactivity into all of your
communication. Cultural differences will influence how the message is shared, and the amount of
interaction that is important.

Actively listen to understand the intent behind comments and suggestions. This is the only way to
validate that the communications are being understood, and will inform you how to build your
communication skills and to communicate more effectively.
4
Learn to embrace the visual: Develop a "vision collage" with the leadership group. A vision collage
is a method that is visually oriented, rather than written, to generate an interpretation. It supports
building a story that enables everyone to see themselves in the future and interpret the story in a
more personal way. A government agency used this approach to create a story and a picture for its
5
multiyear change that helped them successfully communicate the vision in its organization.
Adopting a multimedia approach to your communications will enable a richer understanding among
those receiving the message. It will also present the same message in different and novel ways
while rising about the "noise" in the day-to-day work environment.

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 Actions for CIOs and change leaders:

■ Have a digital site where employees, leaders and program team members can find the "one
version of the truth" about the effort. Make the digital site engaging and interactive to
encourage use. Focus particularly on gaining adoption from middle managers.
■ Understand what employees are using to share ideas already, and consider using these familiar
tools. Translate the same key messages into multiple formats to achieve the most impact and
understanding.
■ Check to see that all stakeholders actually understand the message. This requires asking
people — constantly. Use "Five Questions to Inform CIOs of Organizational Change
Commitment" as a guide. Figure 2 outlines the five questions.
■ Be wary of one-size-fits-all communication. Use email as a way to summarize information or
provide access to channels, not as the primary means for delivering the message.
Figure 2. Measuring the Commitment Cycle: Five Questions for Leaders

Source: Gartner (July 2017)

Build a Peer Advocate Network to Get the Message Out

Contrary to what many leaders believe about their organizations, at Gartner, we believe mass
employee change resistance is a myth. Employees will support enterprise goals when they

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 understand what needs to be done and can take the first few steps. The challenge is how to get this
understanding and commitment deep into the levels of your enterprise, enabling multidirectional
communications and a co-created vision. How can you develop the capability to change faster?
One answer is to use peer advocates (see "Leading From the Heart: Peer Advocates Make
Organizational Change Easier"). These informal leaders put a familiar face on change. They leverage
the relationships and trust they have in the organization to share what will be happening, and
influence successful organizational change.

Organizational change occurs one person at a time, and employees change at different rates, even
within the same stakeholder groups (see "Use Individual Adoption Styles to Bust Through
Organizational Change Resistance"). Mass communications that come top down don't take this into
account, and this is a very slow way to communicate. Peer advocates translate broad change
6
messages into language that their peers understand and can act on. The message gets out quickly.
This is critical, because when employees understand what is changing, they can begin to make the
shift from how they do things now. Even if this is just a conceptual understanding, it is a big shift in
changing thinking and encouraging change.

Use peer advocates to share communications and discussions that are targeted to reach
stakeholders deep in the organization, as well as to amplify concerns, reactions and messages from
the recipients. Examine this bottom-up feedback, and use it to make adjustments as needed — it is
important information and there is a tendency to dismiss it. Ignoring this feedback will be seen by
employees as a breach of trust, and they may be hesitant to engage again (see "Share-Listen-
Adapt: Connect Employees to Successful Change Outcomes").

The most effective communications will differ by stakeholder group. If employees are out in the field
all day, they will need a different method of communication than employees in an office
environment. Peer advocates provide insights into how to most effectively communicate.

Using peer advocates will be a learning process. Be mindful as you develop the capability that all of
this is new, and take small steps to make sure your techniques are working. A manufacturing
company has been developing its peer advocate network over the past several years. This team has
become part of every change, continuing to build on the skills of this "change agent network."
Gartner clients report this takes from 12 to 18 months from pilot to full implementation. This role has
proved beneficial in the success of change efforts and continues to evolve.

Actions for CIOs and change leaders:

■ Listen to and act on information from the peer advocate network. It is valuable to inform you of
where understanding is lacking and to identify oversights.
■ Select good communicators who are influential and well-respected to represent their peer
groups. These employees do not need to be current advocates and their process of building
buy-in can be beneficial to build effective communications.
■ Keep the peer advocate role fresh and effective by not relying on the same individuals. Look for
new contacts to take on this role so there is variety, and to ensure that the same employees are
not always associated with change messaging.

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 There Is No Silver Bullet — This Is a Journey
These must-have practices will help jump-start your organizational change expertise and begin to
make a dent in changing the tide on the transformation failure trend. The journey to competency
requires tenacity, patience, an openness to learning, a willingness to try techniques, and the ability
to accept failure and try again. It will require modifying these practices to be compatible with the
culture of your organization and examining your current leadership practices. Enabling your
organization to change faster and change better (Gartner terms this "change fitness") will challenge
fundamental beliefs that many leaders hold dear, such as the chain of command and having all the
answers. Start small, have a plan for this journey, prove practices and continue to grow the
competency over time. The results will be worth the effort.

Gartner Recommended Reading

Some documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.

"ESCAPE the Past: Six Steps to Successful Change Leadership"

"Five Organizational Change Pitfalls for CIOs to Avoid"

"Leading From the Heart: Peer Advocates Make Organizational Change Easier"

Evidence
1 Based on client conversations, approximately 70% of Gartner clients using a methodology have
started with ADKAR as the foundation. Many tailor to fit their culture, and continue to learn
techniques over time.

2 J. Kotter. "The 8-Step Process for Leading Change." Kotter International. 2012.

3 J.
Kotter. "Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail." Harvard Business Review. January
2007.

4 "Vision Alignment Challenges? Create a Collage."

5D.F. Prosser. "Thirteeners: Why Only 13 Percent of Companies Successfully Execute Their
Strategy — and How Yours Can Be One of Them." 2015.

6J. Battilana, T. Casciaro."The Network Secrets of Great Change Agents." Harvard Business
Review. July-August 2013.

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