Saturday, July 25, 2009

Principles of CHANGE Management

Two to three decades back, probably, Stability was a major goal for most of the organizations and shareholders expected nothing more than predictable earnings growth. But the scenario has changed drastically, market transparency, labor mobility, global capital flows, and instantaneous communications have blown that comfortable scenario and have forced the management of most of the organization to face a new challenge called “CHANGE“. Successful companies, as Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter in 1999, develop “a culture that just keeps moving all the time.”

This presents most senior executives with an unfamiliar challenge. In major transformations of large enterprises, they and their advisors conventionally focus their attention on devising the best strategic and tactical plans. But to succeed, they also must have an intimate understanding of the human side of change management — the alignment of the company’s culture, values, people, and behaviors — to encourage the desired results. Plans themselves do not capture value; value is realized only through the sustained, collective actions of the thousands — perhaps the tens of thousands — of employees who are responsible for designing, executing, and living with the changed environment.

Long-term structural transformation has four characteristics: scale (the change affects all or most of the organization), magnitude (it involves significant alterations of the status quo), duration (it lasts for months, if not years), and strategic importance. Yet companies will reap the rewards only when change occurs at the level of the individual employee.

No single methodology fits every company, but there is a set of practices, tools, and techniques that can be adapted to a variety of situations. What follows is a list of guiding principles for change management. Using these as a systematic, comprehensive framework, executives can understand what to expect, how to manage their own personal change, and how to engage the entire organization in the process. The principles to cater CHANGE MANAGEMENT are listed below:

1. Address the “People Issues” systematically.

2. Embracing CHANGE should start at the Management level.

3.The Transformation programs should involve all different level of organizations.

4. Creation of a Vision Statement Document and articulation of a formal case for change.

5.Ownership by leaders willing to accept responsibility for making change.

6. Communicating the right message (Top to bottom) and Feedback.

7.Assessing the cultural landscape.

8.Prepare for the unexpected, assess the risks.

Interesting, I will write on these principles in detail in my next post on Change Management and let me know the feedback whether this post is gripping enough or not.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Implementing CHANGE Management

The process of implementing change in an organization lies in bringing changes in people's actual behaviour and in the values, beliefs and attitudes that underlie this behaviour. The following are some of the most commonly used implementation techniques:

1. Direct communication involving, where feasible, the entire workforce, but in groups of manageable size at a time so as to facilitate exchange of viewpoints and provide opportunities for feedback.

2. Role Modelling: Leadership comes in, as top management sets an example by behaving in ways that are consistent with the standards and behaviours that the new organization seeks to reinforce.

3. Written Communication: A whole arsenal of newsletters, posters, stickers, badges etc, all carrying the messages associated with organization change, help to reinforce motivation to change.

4. Appropriate human resources policies that support the desired changes including revised performance criteria and methods of performance appraisal, revised renumeration systems.

5. Investment in Training: Training not to impart skills but also to influence attitudes and values.

Implementing Change Management means the actual business of redrawing organization charts, rewriting job descriptions, drawing up a new incentive scheme is a relatively small, albeit vital, part of the process

Friday, July 3, 2009

KUDOS to STRATEGYAAN: Rated 6.7 on Blogged.com

Dear Ashutosh,

Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it a 6.7 score out of (10) in the recreation category of Blogged.com.

http://www.blogged.com/blogs/ashutosh-boses-consulting-blog.html

We evaluated your blog based on the following criteria: Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site Design, and Writing Style.

After carefully reviewing each of these criteria, your site was given its 6.7 score.

Please accept my congratulations on a blog well-done!!

Sincerely,
Amy Liu
Marketing Department
amy@blogged.com
http://www.blogged.com