Change leaders usually start by applying change management methodologies and tools learned to improve adoption rates of a single change initiative, of one project or program. However, this may not be enough to meet the demands of today's agile world. Embedding change management into your organisation’s core ways of working, so that everyone knows their role when confronted by multiple change initiatives, so called Enterprise Change Management (ECM), will help enable your organisation to remain competitive. The result: your workforce is empowered to be proactive and responsive to the need to continually improve business performance.
In this blog we give you 4 tips to encourage flexibility, improve performance and reduce the possibility of change saturation amongst the workforce by minimising disruption and gaining a competitive advantage through more widespread use of change management competencies and best practices.
1. Start with a vision that explains why
Your Enterprise Change Management vision should let others, especially senior leaders who will need to sponsor and support this change, understand the ‘why’. Why will the adoption of effective change management as a necessary core competency for everyone in their respective roles deliver improved business benefits or social outcomes? The vision should encourage them to get behind what you are trying to achieve and outline the goals, start and finish position, timescales and milestones for success. Just like any other good initiative "Project ECM" needs to be resourced, defined and sponsored for success, before a significant awareness campaign is activated internally.
2. It’s about the people
Effective Enterprise Change Management requires change management competencies to grow throughout an entire organisation. To do so, strong and supportive leadership is an essential driver. We have previously covered some key components of an Enterprise strategy such as leadership competency, you can find it here. It is also imperative to empower the key people in your organisation with the tools and confidence to permeate ECM. This may require a specific role to be created to fully support leaders in delivering change management outcomes within their teams. Firstly leaders as well as their line managers will need to be trained in their respective roles to be able to successfully lead change initiatives. Maybe this network of training programs is an activity you wish to do yourself. If so, at CMC we offer the Prosci Enterprise Change Management Bootcamp workshop, equipping individuals with the ability to drive change management beyond the project level, by learning how to inspire and affect the culture of your entire organisation.
3. Communicate your change messages, consistently
Adopting a common approach to the language used for change throughout your organisation will help create a culture of continuous learning. By committing to this, your workforce will better understand things such as, how you assess change, what changes you are choosing to prioritise and why each of them is an integral part of all changes that impact them directly. Adopting a common language for change will also help to defuse the emotion and natural resistance many people experience when confronted by change.
Get your message out there to your workforce in every way that you can and go beyond blog posts on your intranet. Engage employees with ECM by creating opportunities to discuss change initiatives outside of their day to day tasks. This also gives change leaders an opportunity to listen and gain an understanding of how initiatives are being received, essential to the design and deployment of effective change management strategy and plans. Your workforce are the people who enable change to occur, their unrestricted honest feedback is vital.
4. Learn as you go
To build enterprise change capability you have to practice what you preach and adjust and adapt to challenges of implementation. You will be equipped to do this if you deploy an enterprise change management strategy which incorporates the tips covered in this blog post and adopt a Project ECM approach – start with a clear plan and goals, empower the people that can help you to achieve your plan and carefully and consistently communicate your message.
If your organisation has taken the first steps on the journey to grow its change management maturity by choosing to train a Certified Change Management Practitioner and you want to further embed and internalise effective change management within the entire company, then learn more about why the combination of Prosci Train the Trainer Workshop and the Prosci ECM Bootcamp could be the right next step.
Prosci Enterprise Change Management Bootcamp
Build a compelling case for Enterprise Change Management in your organisation and improve organisational change management capability with the with Prosci ECM Bootcamp. Find out more in the brochure or take a look at the upcoming course dates.
Download: ECM Bootcamp Brochure
Interested in learning more?
We can also offer Prosci® change management training and bespoke support to help your organisation through any type of change. Take a look at our range of solutions for organisations or get in touch with the team to find out how we can work with you.
