Fundamentals of Change Management… and why they are important.

• 06 December, 2021 20:59 PM

"Change is the only constant."

– Heraclitus, Greek philosopher

Thought leader, Professor, Emeritus, at the Harvard Business School, author, and the founder of Kotter International, John Kotter points out the two fundamental goals underscoring business transformations:

1.          Increase revenue/profits or decrease cost
2.         Become more efficient or effective

These goals remain a constant, unchanged by technology.  Therefore, understanding and applying change management methodology is a significant toolkit for an organizational continuous improvement.

As a Senior Manager of Change at Zendesk, Dana Otto summarizes four foundational principles of change management:

Be realistic

Not everyone will love the change, setting realistic expectations is important for the success of the change. Informing and having everyone understand why this change is for the improvement of the continuous positive flow of the company is important, that way everyone can get on board with the project plan.

Identify your stakeholders

Who are all going to be impacted by this change? And how each team will be impacted by it? Every stakeholder needs to be on board, without their presence the project will go off the rails and may not be complete on time.

Communicate with your team

Having a back and forth open and clear communication is important for the success of the change.

 Provide resources and support

Everyone needs to be aware of the change BEFORE it happens.  This is a key measure of success but equally critical is PREPARING the team to do their part to make the entire change successful.

 As a key partner in your training and organizational change initiatives, RCG is here to develop and implement successful change protocols and, as Dana Otto suggest, “not to get people to like the change. Our goal is to get them to hate it less.”

Change Management, Workday, Oracle, SAP, MySQL