Middle East & Africa

Rachel Roache

Having worked in human resources for most of my career, I considered myself well-placed for a role specializing in change management. So, when an opportunity arose to take on a position as a regional change lead, I jumped at the chance. Very quickly, I was faced with the challenge of how to drive organizational change at pace and scale across multiple countries, functions, stakeholders, and projects simultaneously. Despite the experience, I was overwhelmed with how I was going to do that successfully.

I have since learned that change management is both an art and a science. A clear understanding of the required steps to manage change throughout the project lifecycle and the confidence to prioritize people and their needs are the hallmarks of a great change manager. Each project is unique, but by building a toolkit that includes the who, what, why, and how of change, we can better manage change for organizations and the people who work in them.

What Drives the Need for Change?

To quote one of my favorite leadership experts, Simon Sinek, we should always ‘Start with Why.' Why do we need to change? What is the vision? What happens if we do not change? Why is it worth it for customers, suppliers, and our people? Aligning leaders to the vision for change around the ‘Why”’ is the first step to understanding firstly, if it is something the organization wants to embark on and secondly, capture the essence of the change story necessary to gain support and sponsorship.

Commonly we embark on a path towards change and get a long way down the road before realizing we don’t have a clear senior executive understanding or buy-in to the end game, which can create confusion, mistrust, and detract from the intent and the impact of the proposed change. Suddenly, a transformation program envisaged to create simplicity and efficiency becomes a cost-cutting exercise where people fear job losses and instability.

Building a case for change involves synthesizing inputs from leaders and sometimes employees regarding what the change will look like and how will we achieve it. Will this work? Why not? How will we measure success? Change managers need to look for areas of tension where leaders are not aligned and keep asking questions until there is a shared vision and conviction of what one hopes to achieve.

The Power of Influential Stakeholders

After establishing the “Why," we consider “Who” — identifying and mapping key stakeholders according to their influence and impact on the change, thinking about who can influence the change, who the key decision makers will be, who is impacted, and who needs to be kept informed, helps clarify the scope, scale, and resource requirements and diagnose potential barriers to overcome. A thorough stakeholder analysis underpins effective governance and project management and sets the foundation for clarity on roles and responsibilities throughout the change.

Implementing Impactful, Meaningful Change

Once the “Why” and “Who” is defined, the “What” behind the change comes into play. Assessing the proposed change through the perspective of people (organizational design, roles, responsibilities, skills, and capabilities), process, systems (data and technology), and governance, and methodically mapping the "As Is" and the "To Be," is an important (and iterative) step that gets into the finer detail of what’s changing, who is impacted, where the work is going. It also highlights any gaps in the design.

The change impact assessment is an important tool in any change manager’s toolkit, but it can't be done in isolation. It requires input, expertise, and knowledge of business stakeholders and subject matter experts.

Navigating Change Strategically

Upon understanding “What” is changing, we then tackle the “How”— this includes a robust implementation plan, a detailed communications plan, and a clear roadmap of all potential impacts on people affected by the change. In the application of change, art meets science, and change managers need to consider the key project milestones and the aspects of human behavior and mindset that must be positively influenced to effectively land the change.

Arguably, project plans and milestones are somewhat easier to work with than the human side of change. Knowing, Human beings are hard-wired to resist change and prefer to stay working in flawed systems and structures than embrace something new is useful when implementing change. Everyone moves through the change curve at a different pace. Anticipating, expecting, and welcoming resistance as a normal human reaction helps normalize the change where it feels like everything could fall under the weight of resistance. Eventually, most of us will get to the other side of the curve with sufficient support, clarity of information, and understanding why change must happen.

During the implementation, we put everything into practice. Our Why - sharing our change story and reinforcing the vision, the reasons for, and clarifying what the organization will look and feel like.

Our stakeholder map helps us navigate the change, positioning our most influential leaders and stakeholders to communicate, role-model new ways of working and reinforce the change through recognition and success stories, building confidence and addressing concerns and fears.

Our change plan helps us nimbly address barriers or roadblocks and make necessary adjustments. Acceptance of and preparation for resistance and emotional reaction to change puts us in a good position to support those at varying stages of their change curve.

Finally, change management doesn’t stop once everything has been implemented. Providing support and guidance in the early weeks and months through regular and open communication, recognition for those adopting the new, support, and role-modeling from leaders and influential stakeholders are essential if the change is going to stick for the long term.