Change Implementation Strategies

What is a change implementation strategy and why is it important? Change is different for every organisation, due to work culture and people culture. This is why it is important to tailor a change implementation strategy that is unique to the organisation and its reason for change. A change implementation strategy is there to ensure a smooth transtion from the old to the new natural environment. It guides the managers and the organistion throughout the journey, making sure that all needs and goals are met in the process.

Initially, change strategies are more focused on on-boarding experts to analyse problems and resolve these problems using Scientific methods, but change management teams later learned that there is another dimension to the work that needs an equal amount of attention. The comparison between autocratic and democratic leadership brought to light the areas of the other side of change management; a process that involves discussion and engagement with the people within the organisation and those that are affected by the change both in and out of the organisation, aka the stakeholders.

Based on later studies, it appears that when stakeholders are involved in the process, at the level that matchs their interest and investedness, they tend to put more effort in supporting change and influence others to do the same. This reaction can only be achieved if the change implementation strategy matches the organisational profile and its reason for change.

From the popular Tayloristic approch, change strategies have evolved and several other strategies have been developed, all of which consider the people side of change, aside from the  techincal and process sides. These new strategies evolved from local or group learning to organisational learning. This allowed large scale changes to be implemented with a strategy that can prepare the change management team to tackle and resolve any issues that may arise along the way.

Burnes and Cooke paved the way for Organisational Development, with studies based on French and Bell’s observation on how an economic environment prompts organisations to re-strategise, in order to adjust to new demands and remain competitive as an organisation.

Kurt Lewin also put empahsis on how people base their beliefs and values according to those of the group they belong. It also affects and influences them in their behaviour and attitude – crucial aspects of the people side of change management, which, if left unmanaged or ineffectively managed will fuel proponents of resistance.

This shows the importance of why combining top-down and down-up change strategies, both in small or large scale changes, can result to better management and transitioning to change.

Managing Change

As mentioned earlier, top-down management was the leading strategy used by organisations, to implement both small and large scale changes. But overtime, experts learned that collaboration and involving people in the process yields better results and are likely to increase the success rate of the project.

However, there are still organisations who favor top-down change managent rather than the down-up and the combination of the two. There are still those who believe that more than the social and people aspect of the organisation, the more effective way to measure the performance of an organisation is how effective and efficient its technical system is. Some argue that this is easier to measure and gauge rather than observe and assess the success rate of a project, based on how well or poorly received it is by the organisation’s population.

However, more studies show that combining the top-down and down-up strategy allows an organisation to scale changes, producing results for both the short and the long term goals that necessitated the change. The third approach, a combination of the two earlier approaches, was designed by Beer, and this approach strikes a balance between the technical aspect and the social aspect of change management.

Economic change strategies tend to focus more on work and systems design, with very little to no consideration given to how the change impacts the people and how that impact determines their behavior towards change. When leaders realised this wasn’t enough, they turned to experts who believed that people’s expectations should also be managed, in order to gain their trust, cooperation, and agreement. This gave birth to Operational Development, where experts and leaders agree that when the technical or system side of the organisation changes, so should the aspects related to the people side of the project.

One of the most important factors to consider when developing a change strategy is understanding where the resistance is coming from and the reason for it. Resistance is the biggest challenge in any change implementation, mainly because this is a collective reaction from different people, from different groups, within the organisation. Getting feedback and analysing it gives leaders an insight on what type of resistance they need to confront and tackle, which groups these are coming from, and the percentage of the poppulation who shares the same sentiment. From here, they can tap into the most influential people within these groups or the from leadership, who support change and has the ability to influence more people, if the not the rest of the team, to put in the same effort and support the change.

The OD strategy, no matter how accommodating and inclusive it sounds, is not entirely flawless and entirely effective on its own, especially for sitewide changes. So Beer developed the third strategy, which is also referred to as the combined strategy, so that both economic and organisational development needs are considered when developing an implementation strategy. Change can now happen on both sides, simultaneously, without leaving an entire half of the work undone. Many believe that this approach is more effective, for both small and large undertakings.

Traditional Approach vs Continuously Evolving Approach

While the combined strategy sounds like the ultimate solution to create the best implementation strategy for any type of organisation, some leaders and managers remain reluctant in making use of this approach, stating that feedback is less accurate than any measurable technical or system data. So in 1979, Kotter and Schlesinger’s model showed the importance of situational variables and why implementing a change strategy that is compatible with these variables increases the accuracy of the strategy, allowing for a smoother process and transition, economically and organisationally. In this case there is a directional strategy to focus on the economic side and a collaborative strategy to focus on the people side.

According to the Kotter and Schleisinger model, aka the contingency model, these are the imporant situational variables to consider, whenever managers are developing a strategy.

1. Urgency and stakes involved
2. Clarity of desired future state
3. The amount and type of resistance anticipated
4. The amount of resources needed to implement the strategy
5. The ability of the initiators to influence the people and overcome resistance
6. The trust level that the people have for the leadership team, change managers, and their local group leaders

These variables expose both the strengths and the weaknesses of the project, allowing managers to identify and turn these into actionable items, which will make up the implementation strategy. And depending on the amount of resources required, as well as the readily available resources for the implementation of the project, the management team can determine the speed at which they should work. A slower pace is required if there are plenty of involvement and dialogue activities along the way. Same goes with any project that involves a great amount of  interdependency among its teams and departments, as well as between change managers and the stakeholders. Overtime, as the barriers and challenges are overcome, and the managers can better predict and anticipate outcomes and crowd behaviour, they can work at the fast end of the continuum.