A Few Final Thoughts About Organizational Change Management

Previous blogs explored the importance of organizational change management (OCM) and the significant obstacles that stand in the way of achieving it, the biggest being that most people try to avoid change like they try to avoid COVID-19. This blog offers additional insight into a few more OCM obstacles that need to be cleared.

Let’s start with what happens when organizations don’t have an OCM plan in place. When new technologies and/or operational procedures are going to be implemented, organizations typically start communicating and training until about 60 days before the go-live to get everyone — personnel and stakeholders — ready for the implementation.

The big day finally arrives, and there’s plenty of smiles and back slaps to go around. Then, typically, it’s on to the next thing the very next day. Because the organization didn’t consider sustainment, a crucial part of an effective OCM plan, the implementation eventually will falter, and the desired return on investment won’t be realized. The moral of the story is that reinforcing the change is the most important aspect of the change.

It’s important to note that even when change is implemented well, most personnel will need time to understand it, accept it, and ideally embrace it. They will have questions, need coaching, and need to develop new competencies and confidence. This often does not come easily. This is especially true of personnel who have been using the same technologies and/or procedures for many years — the longer they have been doing so, the more time and patience they will need to adapt. This is where sustainment begins.

Complicating all this is that personnel often avoid asking questions for fear of appearing dumb. (An aside: there are no stupid questions, but there are stupid answers.) They once felt extremely competent and confident regarding previous technologies and procedures, but now feel exactly the opposite. As a result, they would rather flounder than risk embarrassment by raising their hand. This is human nature. To get around this, organizations often need to query personnel individually, or at least anonymously, to determine what each needs to develop new confidence and competencies and to ensure sustainment over the long haul.

A friend who worked many years in public relations (PR) once told me that there are two kinds of organizations: those that believe in the magic of PR and those that don’t. He added that it was easy to tell them apart. The former always want to see placement clips, while the latter never do — they just have faith, which can be defined as believing without seeing. OCM is analogous to public relations—when organizations believe in it and it is done well, good things generally follow.

We would love the opportunity to help you bring OCM to your organization. The value of OCM is not theoretical but very real. Sooner or later, every organization will need to engage in it because every organization must evolve to changing conditions if it wants to remain relevant — and conditions are constantly changing.

Jennifer Wray is an MCP organizational change manager. Email her at JenniferWray@MissionCriticalPartners.com.