Change management is a process, not a checkbox activity.
Change is about guiding groups of people through the messy, human side of transformation. People who need to embrace change, rather than just comply with an instruction. Too often I find project team members wanting to jump straight to the tactics before we’ve even had a conversation about stakeholders, and what their needs might be.
Here’s the problem with that approach: You can’t build a meaningful change plan unless you understand the environment you are working in and the people you are working with.
You need to consider these three things, at a minimum:
1) The Solution: What exactly is changing? What does success look like and how much of this solution is fixed (as opposed to the stuff we’re still working out)?
2) The Stakeholders: Who are the people who are impacted, and how? What is in this change for them? Who are the people most likely to resist, and why?
3) Concerns and Needs: What are the pain points of these various groups of people. How is what we are doing solving a problem for them, as opposed to just creating new ones?
Without stopping to gain insight from these three questions, any change plan I produce is just noise. All I’d be writing down are a set of tactics that may (or may not) work. No guarantees.
Change isn’t painting by numbers. It’s not an exact science, and sometimes you need to not just colour outside the lines but draw new lines completely.
Just because I have a toolkit of techniques and strategies that come from my past experience, it doesn’t mean I can just copy and paste it into a new situation and expect it to work. That would be like trying to assemble flat-pack furniture without reading the instructions. Sure, you may have built a bookcase before but what will you do with all the left-over pieces when you have built your wobbly bookshelf?
Doing your discovery before design is critical. Discovery is about asking the right questions, listening deeply and resisting the urge to solve problems before you understand exactly what is happening.
So, if you’re leading change (or working with a change manager to do so), don’t rush to tactics before you have done the legwork of discovery. Invest some time deeply thinking about your stakeholders and challenge your assumptions. Spend a while in their shoes, seeing things from their perspective.
Doing this hard work up front will save you from headaches later, when your audience shrugs off your beautifully crafted plan, because it just doesn’t hit the mark.
The best change plans aren’t the fastest ones to write. It’s the plans are the ones that are well thought through that are most likely to work.
