The Shape of Change

A guide to planning, implementing and embedding organisational change

Nicola Busby

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781315455433
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Sviluppo organizzativo
• Index: Business

No organisations, change initiative or stakeholder is ever the same. The way business change management is shaped to work with and get the best out of every different change situation makes a vital contribution to the success of the change.

The Shape of Change is the first business change management book to focus solely on the practical challenges of how to plan, implement and embed successful business change initiatives in a wide range of organisations from the business change manager's point of view. It focuses on shaping every different change approach to take into consideration each individual situation including organisational culture, the type and impact of change the initiative, the attitudes and concerns of stakeholders and the potential for resistance within the organisation. Using a series of example change initiatives in private, public and non-profit sectors, it describes the change management journey, highlighting key points where business change management interventions are essential, and exploring how it feels to undertake business change initiatives in a wide range of situations, from communicating the initial change idea to ensuring the change is embedded and working well in business as usual.

Accessible and comprehensive, The Shape of Change is relevant to anyone working in or planning organisational change.

1
Shaping the need for change

Introducing change into organisations is disruptive, costly, and risky. In order for change to be successful, there needs to be very strong reasons why it needs to happen. These reasons are called the drivers for change.

Drivers for change tend to fall into three main categories:

To improve the organisation: this can be done in a number of ways, including:

• Changing the organisation internally to become more efficient or effective;
• Altering the goods or services produced or branching out into different customer segments to take advantage of opportunities in the market;
• Improving the reputation of the organisation to fulfil moral obligations, motivate staff, and attract customers.

To adapt to an external event: this can be in response to anything that happens in the world outside of the organisation, including:

• The advent of new laws, regulations, or policies that affect the organisation;
• Changes in the economy or society which affect the behaviour of customers;
• Increased competition from other organisations.

Advances in technology: technology has a place in most change, but some change initiatives exist purely because of technological advances, for example:

• Upgrading technological infrastructure or software;
• Implementing enterprise software to perform business functions such as order processing, accounting, and customer relationship management;
• Dealing with outdated goods and services or organisational capabilities due to advances in technology.

Organisational changes of any significant size usually have more than one driver. Often the case for change becomes compelling enough only when a number of drivers combine to make undertaking change less risky than the consequences of keeping things as they are.

Table 1.1 gives some examples of change initiatives, showing the main drivers for the change:

Table 1.1 The drivers for example change initiatives

Change Initiative	Drivers
Burntwood EDRMS Introducing better	A recent government directive requires all UK county councils to review their information management practices
information management across the county council	A recent data protection breach damaged the reputation of Burntwood and put users at risk
	Information management could be more efficient and the quality of documents produced could be improved
Mayer & Co E-file Moving the law firm from paper to electronic caseloads	Potential customers not accessing the law firm due to outdated communication methods
	There is a high risk of losing important and confidential paper files in transit
	The firm is shortly moving to new offices with less storage space, so there will be limited room for paper files
Workout! Restructure Standardising and professionalising the services offered to customers	New legislation has recently been introduced stating that all UK charities must show public benefit
	A recognition that the quality of service given to customers needs to be improved
	A need to have greater control and visibility of services and finances in order to grow the organisation
Spark Clearholme Office Move	Leases of current buildings are shortly coming to an end with no chance of renewal
Relocating the newly merged organisation from four buildings into one	Increased opportunities for more collaborative working and time saved if all teams are located in one building
	The move will consolidate the merger and encourage the staff to think of themselves as belonging to one organisation
Spark Clearholme Marketing Campaign Planner	Information about marketing campaigns are currently recorded in lots of different ways
Standardising the software used by marketing teams to plan campaigns	Management data are needed to learn about best practice from marketing campaigns
	Marketing practices need to improve to keep ahead of the competition in an increasingly crowded marketplace

The business change manager may be involved with identifying drivers and advocating change, but this is more normally done by business leaders and strategy professionals or operational teams. It is usually only after the decision to change has been taken that active business change management starts, and the first activities needed include:

• Putting foundations in place for successful change
• Creating a compelling vision for the change
• Communicating early messages about the change.

Putting the foundations in place for successful change

Ideas for change can come from anywhere within the organisation, including:

• From the top down, when change ideas are generated by senior leaders as part of the organisation’s strategy;
• From the ground up, when staff within operational areas generate ideas to solve local issues or exploit local opportunities.

Change ideas generated from the top down

Change ideas generated from senior leaders as part of the organisation’s strategy tend to be larger and more complex than those coming from within operational areas. Senior leaders focus on the organisation as a whole, rather than specialising in separate operational areas, and so can initiate changes which affect multiple departments and teams. They also have more power and influence than those sitting within operational areas, greater access to resources, and the ability to prioritise what the organisation focusses on. This means that changes generated from the top should have many of the factors which will contribute to success already in place, including strong leadership support, good strategic fit, compelling drivers for change, and enough resources and management attention to execute the change properly.

Often, the main challenge with making top down change successful is ensuring that the proposed changes can realistically be implemented in the affected parts of the organisation. Senior leaders can be quite removed from the day to day workings of the organisation and may think that a change initiative will be easier to implement than it really is, generally through underestimating the effect on cultures and behaviours.

Therefore, a major role of business change in the early days of a top down change is to encourage the senior leaders who generated the idea to consult with the areas of the organisation which are going to be affected by the change. Representatives from these areas can add real value at this stage by offering insights into how people, systems and cultures work on the ground, and therefore how much they will be affected by the change initiative. They can also advise on how easily or otherwise they feel changes would be accepted and could quite possibly come up with alternative ideas which could still achieve the desired goal but make the future far more palatable for their colleagues, increasing the chances of success.

Make sure you choose your organisational representatives carefully. They need to be trusted by both their colleagues and senior leaders and they need to be able to assess the ideas as impartially as possible. They should be sympathetic to the need for change and work together with the decision makers for the very best outcome for the organisation as a whole, and not just their affected areas or individual teams.

Box 1.1 Business representation in the early days of Burntwood EDRMS

Spurred on by a number of compelling drivers for change, the CEO included an update of information management practices in Burntwood County Council’s new three-year strategy. A small project team was set up to investigate options, and a panel of evaluators was created. The panel consisted of all the senior leaders with an interest in the initiative but also included two representatives from within the operational areas of the organisation. These representatives were chosen because they were well respected by their colleagues and had a good understanding of how the organisation worked. They were able to give an indication of how much impact each option would have on different operational areas in terms of working practices, behaviours, and cultures, and they played a significant role in shaping the eventual solution.

Change ideas generated from the ground up

Change ideas generated by operational areas to solve local issues or exploit local opportunities are generally smaller in scope and impact fewer areas of the organisation than strategic changes generated by senior leaders. At least, that is how they may seem initially.

One of the key activities needed at the early stages of these ideas is to assess whether the changes impact only the local area, and therefore can be implemented locally as part of business as usual, or whether they are actually bigger than they seem and need to be managed as larger organisational changes. Two indicators may help with this assessment:

If more than one area within the organisation is working separately to solve the same problems or try out the same ideas. This may indicate that the scope of change is larger than originally thought, the impact on the organisation may be greater than currently expected, and there may be opportunities for increasing the benefits of the change by approaching the problem more holistically. If so, the change becomes strategic and will need senior leadership, resources, and engagement from across the organisation to be successful. Therefore, it should be treated as a larger organisational change.

If the change impacts more than just the local area who had the idea. Implementing local change initiatives often involve more functions and departments than originally expected. It is important to ascertain who needs to be involved in and may be affected by any local change initiative before the change commences; otherwise, you may be in for a nasty shock later on. Many change initiatives have been undermined because those involved have consciously or unconsciously overlooked the impact and consequences beyond the immediate team. The stakeholder identification exercise outlined in Chapter 4 will help you understand who needs to be involved in and is affected by your change.

If the change does involve more than the initial local area, then managing it as a bigger organisational change will greatly increase its chance of success. There is sometimes reluctance from local areas to relinquish control of their change idea ...