Whether you're looking to make a small process change or a full-scale organizational change, it's common & quite natural to feel rather daunted by the challenge ahead of you. You know change needs to happen, but where to start? Who to involve? And so on ...
There are many theories around about how to successfully implement change and many of these are derived from John Kotter's (Harvard professor) 8-Step Change Model.
Here's an overview and some suggestions on how you can apply the 8 steps in your organization (for a quick to absorb model on this, please click here):
Step 1 Create a sense of urgency
For the change to happen, it needs the whole organization behind it - believing in it:
- Identify potential threats and develop potential scenarios showing what could happen in the future
- Examine the opportunities that should be exploited
- Start discussions, giving people convincing reasons to start thinking and talking and thinking about the change
- Rally support from your customers and outside investors to reinforce your argument
Step 2 Form a change coalition
To help convince people that change needs to happen, find and fuel effective leaders in your organization:
- Identify true leaders in your organization
- Ask for emotional commitment from these people
- Check your team for weaknesses and make sure you have a good mix of people from different areas and levels
Step 3 Create a vision for change
You need a clear vision so people can understand the purpose of what you're asking them to do:
- Determine the values that are central to the change
- Develop a short summary that captures what you see as the future of the organization
- Create a strategy to execute the vision
- Practice your vision speech often
Step 4 Communicate the vision
What you do with your vision will determine whether you are successful or not and you'll find many other run of the day company communications competing against yours:
- At every opportunity, talk about your change vision
- Address people's concerns - and there will be concerns
- Tie your vision to operations- training, reviews, hiring process ...
- Lead by example
Step 5 Remove obstacles
You need to remove obstacles to empower people to execute your vision:
- Identify change leaders
- Recognize and reward people for making change happen
- Identify those resisiting change and help them see the need
- Remove barriers - human and other
Step 6 Create short-term wins
Success motivates - give your team a taste for success:
- Pick a simple project you can implement with help from the die hard critics
- Choose inexpensive projects where you can justify the spend
- Reward the people the help you meet the goals
Step 7 Build on the change
Real change runs deep - keep looking for improvements:
- After every win, analyze what went right and what went wrong
- Set goals to continue building on what you've achieved
- Learn about Kaizen
Step 8 Anchor the changes in corporate culture
Make the change stick!
- Talk about progress every chance you get
- Tell success stories
- Include values when hiring or training staff
- As key leaders of the change move on, be sure to replace them
To see the Knowledge Gene on this, click here - Kotter's 8-Step Change Model
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