By Mick Hides

The quote above from Peter Senge underpins the focus of most - if not all - change management tools. Whilst we could look at individual change we will focus on organisational change for this article. When people feel they are in control of their situation they are happy to go along with an idea. Threatening their comfort zone (perhaps in the form of challenging beliefs) causes a fightback whether consciously or unconsciously.

A quick Google search for change management tools brings up a resulting 31.9million results. I have not personally checked all these out...yet, but I am fairly comfortable that the majority of these will be methods to address the human/people elements within a change agenda. After all, if we did not involve people in our projects, we would have no problems.
 
There is a view that there are only two sources of motivation for change: aspiration or desperation.
 
The key to successful change seems to come down to inclusion. It may be leaders that instigate change but unless everyone feels involved any change is not going to sustainable.
 
Equally management cannot just point everyone in the right direction and leave them to get on with it. I remember working with a manufacturing company on a change programme. During the introduction to the programme, I overheard two employees chatting. "What's this all about?" said the first. "Don't worry", said his mate, "it will only last a couple of weeks and we can go back to what we were doing what we do now".

Do you know they were right, too!
 
The problem is that change involves everyone and everyone must be involved. Leaders must not only gain the buy-in, but also set the standard and reinforce the change on a daily basis. All change involves loss. Basically you have to give up one way of thinking/working and replace with a better (you hope) way of thinking/working. In a work environment, it takes a great deal of effort to get back to being as efficient and effective as you were before.
 
A simple example of this is my own learning to touch type. I know if I can master touch typing it will improve my daily productivity. However I could type fairly well even if it was with a couple of fingers. Determined to make the change I practiced with touch typing software, but always reverted to my old method when I had a report that needed completing. In the end I took the decision to be less efficient for a couple of days but painfully preserved with getting my technique right. The belief that eventually I would get quicker was something that I hung on to even though the temptation to revert to my old ways persisted until I eventually succeeded.
 
Organisational change is very much like this. I have worked in environments where the temptation to abandon any change because it slows us down has killed many change programmes. Simply put, everyone sees that the leaders are not bought in and do not value the change, as it is the first thing to be discarded.
 
Back to the job in hand: How do we decide which tools to use? The answer to this is not simple. The reasons for this are that we are all different and as such, approach change in a different way.

I recently attended the International Project Management Day held by the Project Management Institute. The tag line for the event was "It's people that Count!" Whilst an excellent event, each speaker had a different model for helping people cope with change...and I could see the benefit of all of them! I have spent time looking at many different approaches to managing people and will admit that some methods appeal to me more than others. Equally some approaches work better with some organisations than others. If you are serious about managing change then perhaps your research needs to take into account more than one approach. Take time to look at the different options and perhaps look to combine some of these. From experience I know some work exceptionally well, and yet the same approach falls flat with a different group.  
 
Recognising that everyone is different means that I may need to have multiple activities to get the same message across to everyone. The design of most toolkits takes this into account.
 
The simplest and most effective approach is to listen to what your colleagues/team members/staff are saying. What is it about the change that they like/dislike? What are their concerns? How can they feel part of the process? How can their needs be met?
 
From the perspective of a project manager, it is important to remember that the desired end point is only a small part of the challenge. To make a sustainable change you need to ensure that everyone is bought in, sees the benefits and continues with the new approach long after the project has been completed.

Mick Hides is a Project Management Consultant for Arras People.