The Effective Change Manager's Handbook

Essential Guidance to the Change Management Body of Knowledge

Richard Smith, David King, Ranjit Sidhu, Dan Skelsey, Richard Smith, David King, Dan Skelsey, Ranjit Sidhu

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780749473082
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

The Effective Change Manager's Handbook helps practitioners, employers and academics define and practise change management successfully and develop change management maturity within their organization. A single-volume learning resource covering the range of knowledge required, it includes chapters from established thought leaders on topics ranging from benefits management, stakeholder strategy, facilitation, change readiness, project management and education and learning support. The Effective Change Manager's Handbook covers the whole process from planning to implementation, offering practical tools, techniques and models to effectively support any change initiative.The editors of The Effective Change Manager's Handbook - Richard Smith, David King, Ranjit Sidhu and Dan Skelsey - are all experienced international consultants and trainers in change management. All four editors worked on behalf of the Change Management Institute to co-author the first global change management body of knowledge, The Effective Change Manager, and are members of the APMG International examination panel for change management.

01

A change management perspective

RICHARD SMITH

Introduction

Change is a necessity for survival. This was brought home to me many years ago as I read Charles Handyʼs book The Empty Raincoat: Making sense of the future (Handy, 1994). He describes a pattern, the ʻsigmoid curveʼ (shaped somewhat like a Greek letter ʻsʼ: see Figure 1.1). It is a classic life cycle that traces the stumbling start, the rise and success, and the eventual decay of empires, organizations, products, processes and even an individual person or career. Handy points out that the timescale is becoming ever more compressed. ʻNewʼ products, processes, organizations and initiatives rise and decay at an ever-faster rate.

Figure 1.1 The sigmoid curve

SOURCE: From The Empty Raincoat by Charles Handy, published by Hutchinson. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited.

This sounds depressing, but change is possible (Figure 1.2). A new curve can be begun. As Handy puts it: ʻThe right place to start that second curve is at point A, where there is the time, as well as the resources and the energy to get the new curve through its initial explorations and floundering before the first curve begins to dip downwards.ʼ The difficulty is that at point A there is no apparent and urgent need for change. That tends to come at point B, when disaster is imminent. By this stage, however, the time, energy and resources to support the needed ʻnew beginningʼ are no longer available.

Figure 1.2 The sigmoid curve – the second curve

SOURCE: From The Empty Raincoat by Charles Handy, published by Hutchinson. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited.

So as we begin our thinking about organizational change, we recognize the necessity of a restless searching for change that will enable the health and success of an organization – and its people – to be continually renewed as it transfers from one sigmoid curve to the next… and the next.

This chapter is the least ʻhandbook-likeʼ of the 13 chapters in this book. Other chapters will each take a particular aspect of the discipline of change management and explore it practically, offering tools, templates and techniques to help the practising change manager perform effectively. This chapter offers no tools and few prescriptions (some may have slipped in through lack of self-restraint by the author!). Its purpose is to set a context for the discipline of change management, based on the wide and growing body of published research and thinking.

The chapter introduces a selection of influential models and perspectives on change. These are drawn from the wide and still-growing body of research and thought about change since the mid-20th century. All of us involved in change management have our favourite approaches and models – and it is inevitable that those I have selected and referred to will miss some of the favourites of each reader. My hope is that the way I have described and presented this selection will encourage readers to explore further, using the references to build their own change management perspective.

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CHAPTER CONTENTS

Section A: Why change management matters

Section B: Change and the individual

Section C: Change and the organization

Section D: Key roles in organizational change

Section E: Organizational culture and change

Section F: Emergent change

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Section A: Why change management matters

Introduction

This section sets out to assess why effective change management is important. It describes ʻthe knowledge required to offer clear, concise and well-evidenced information about the role of effective change management in enabling successful change in organizationsʼ (CMI CMBoK, 2013).

I shall mention some of the research showing how often and how seriously change initiatives fail. More encouragingly I outline key research findings that show how a range of factors can be managed to increase the chances of successful change. The research offers change managers valuable evidence to use when advocating good practice.

1. Organizationsʼ experiences of change

It is easy for leaders and managers in organizations to assume that change is straightforward. We are educated and trained to approach problems logically and rationally. We see an opportunity to make an improvement – large or small – and can formulate plans to make that improvement.

It sometimes comes as a shock that our wholly rational plan does not meet with the immediate approval (and applause) of colleagues. A greater shock awaits; having convinced colleagues that the plan is absolutely what is needed, it simply does not work in practice. So many structural, technical and organizational factors seem to resist progress that implementation, we say, feels like ʻwading through treacleʼ. Within a few months the plan is consigned to history and the organization continues as before.

This is a caricature, of course. However, like any caricature it contains elements of the experience of many managers and leaders. Research over several decades records a depressingly high failure rate for change initiatives. Failure rates of change initiatives – more particularly, where change achieves substantially less than the expected value – have been reported as high as 70–80 per cent (King and Peterson, 2007). However, a few top-performing organizations experience success rates in excess of 80 per cent (IBM, 2008b). The variable criteria and measures typically used in these studies make it difficult to draw definitive conclusions about the failure rates and their causes (Hughes, 2011). Nevertheless, the continuing consistent, accumulated evidence from CEOs, project and change managers through a wide range of sources does point to the reality that very many change efforts do fail.

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Further reading

Research on the successes and failures of change initiatives includes:

Beer, M and Nohria, N (2000) Cracking the code of change

Hughes, M (2011) Do 70 per cent of all organizational change initiatives really fail?

IBM (2008b) Making Change Work

King, S and Peterson, L (2007) How effective leaders achieve success in critical change initiatives

Laclair, JA and Rao, RP (2002) Helping employees embrace change

Kotter, JP (1995) Leading change: why transformation efforts fail

Moorhouse Consulting (2013) Barometer on Change 2013

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2. Factors contributing to success in change management

2.1 What the research suggests

The failure of many change initiatives to deliver what they promise is serious, but not inevitable. There is a strong and growing body of evidence that demonstrates the value of well-established change management practices in improving the success rate:

• A study by Laclair and Rao (2002) found a close relationship between 12 change management factors (at three levels: senior, mid- and front line) and the value captured from change initiatives. Companies effective at all three levels captured an average of 143 per cent of the expected value. Laclair and Rao measured general management factors that, followed effectively, contribute powerfully to success. Examples include executive and line management fulfilling their functions effectively and providing training, resource and empowerment for the front line.
• PriceWaterhouseCoopers published a study (PwC, 2004) on project and programme management practices. They conclude, amongst other things: ʻThe survey reveals an undeniable correlation between project performance, maturity level and change management. The majority of the best performing and most mature organisations always or frequently apply change management to their projects.ʼ This highlights the need for alignment of change and project management practices and for ensuring appropriate organizational structure.
• An IBM study (2008b) highlights four key activities that make change effective:
  – prepare by gaining deep, realistic insight into the complexity of the change, and plan accordingly;
  – use a robust change methodology aligned with a project management methodology;
  – build and apply skills in sponsors, change managers and empowered staff;
  – invest appropriately in change management.
  They also found that the success rate of change projects using a dedicated change manager rose by 19 per cent compar...