Change Management Models

Change management is a people focused craft that draws on your communication capabilities and your political savvy to help you guide change through an organization. Part of leading change is about having a change process to follow, this good process will help you to engage your stakeholders, build momentum and organizational support to identify and overcome resistance to change.

Currently the dominant change management models that will help you to develop a change management process are

ADKAR (Developed by Prosci)

Prosci

Kotter’s 8 Step Change Model

Lewin’s 3 Stages of change (1950’s)

Now, let’s take a look at each change management model in more detail

ADKAR Developed by Prosci

ADKAR is a sequential change management model, developed by Prosci, that when followed transitions a person or team of people through a change.

Awareness – of the change and the organizational reason for the change

Desire – engaging peoples desire for the change through leadership, emotional appeals and resistance management strategies

Knowledge – through training or coaching providing the employee/s with the knowledge of how to do their jobs after the change has occurred

Ability – The practical application of the knowledge in the workplace, which may require considerable additional coaching

Reinforcement – providing reinforcement for the change from praise for early adopters to celebrations

ADKAR is also considered to be a useful tool for

Assessing poor performing change, if you can pinpoint the element of the model where people are stuck you will be able to develop strategies to help move people through the change process

Developing change management plans to move people through the change

Measuring the progress of your change

Essentially, for a change to be successful you need to transition people through each of the steps of ADKAR in order.

Prosci

Prosci is a three-step change management model supported by extensive tools, techniques and resources that is scalable to different change scenarios.

If you are keen to develop strong change management competencies then it would pay you to visit Prosci and brows their site. (Prosci is proprietary so we cannot give away their secrets to you here) The Prosci 3 phase change management process overview

Phase 1: Prepare for the change

In the first phase you will gain an understanding of the change, who the major stakeholders, develop the change strategy and ensure all people with a role to play in delivering the change are aware of their role and equipped to play their role. In this phase you may also identify some areas where resistance to the change could be reasonably anticipated.

Phase 2: Managing the change

In the second phase you will develop and execute a number of plans to support people through the change, see ADKAR, these plans include communication, training coaching, resistance management plans. More importantly you will communicate with stakeholders and engage impacted employees in the change planning and delivery.

Phase 3: Reinforcing the change

In the final phase you will follow up on the change implementation by measuring the adoption of the change through collected feedback from impacted employees, audit and observation to identify areas where the change has gone well and areas where there are some gaps or pockets of resistance. You will also intervene to overcome the gaps to ensure the change is a success

Kotter’s 8 Step Model

Kotter was one of the first to identify the need for a holistic approach to the management of change and after extensive research identified an eight step change management model. The eights steps are

Step 1: Establishing a Sense of Urgency

Establishing a sense of urgency requires you to link the change to the organizations long-term goals, enlisting senior managers/executives to publicly support the change. A little is about knowing when to drive the change by making sure you change has a clear run and will not get sidelined due to another activity that is already in play.

Step 2: Creating the Guiding Coalition

With your sense of urgency and the support of senior managers and executives establish a team to deliver the change, the leaders of the people who are required to change. Let this team know what is expected from them and provide coaching on how they can help lead the change.

No change will work if the change manager does not build a strong team to deliver the change.

Step 3: Developing a Change Vision

Create a vision for the change by engaging those impacted by the change in developing the vision (Probably just the leaders of those impacted). Set aside your personal preferences and develop a vision that resonates with the impacted employees.

Again check for obstacles and keep the path clear

Step 4: Communicating the Vision for Buy-in

Then communicate the vision and get others (senior managers) to communicate the vision broadly in the organization, verify that people understand the vision and will support the vision. Whilst communicating the vision be on the lookout for resistance, as it will start to become more visible.

Step 5: Empowering Broad-based Action

Empowering action is making it possible for people to adopt the change, removing organizational obstacles such as structure, KPI’s, reporting processes and other elements of the organization that are inconsistent with the change that you are seeking.

Step 6: Generating Short-term Wins

Include in your planning some short-term gains or wins to help build momentum and celebrate these wins. Have senior leaders talk bout these wins in meetings and informally to staff. Your short-term wins will increase the probability of others embracing the change and will reduce resistance to the change in other areas of the business.

Step 7: Never Letting Up

Never letting up is all about holding steady and reinforcing the vision, soon after a change has been implemented people will revert back to old ways if you take your eye of the ball. It is important to keep your messages alive and monitor the change for many months after the change is implemented. This can be done via audit, reporting progress or in discussion with impacted areas.

The next wave of change can also help reinforce the last change.

Step 8: Incorporating Changes into the Culture

Incorporating the change into culture includes ensuring the management systems have the change embedded. These management systems include policies, procedures and work instructions, reporting and audit processes and in informal and formal communications.

Lewin's Three Step Model

The change Management model developed by Lewin has three phases to it that are quite simple to understand and have a ring to them that appeals to myself. The three steps in Lewins model are

Step 1: Unfreeze

The existing way of doing things is considered frozen in the organizations culture, systems and practices and that needs to be thawed so that the organization can change.

Unfreezing requires you to understand the “as is” and the compelling reason for the change to take place, establish strong support for the change and communicate the reasons for the change and finally listen to employee concerns and address their concerns.

Step 2: Change

Now that the organizations is “unfrozen” it is open to change so you will need to communicate often and in many ways, bust myths or rumors that emerge, empower actions through involvement and participation.

Generate and celebrate short-term wins and reinforce the change.

Step 3: Refreeze

Refreezing is about embedding the change into the companies culture and systems of work. Updating policies, procedures and work instructions, KPI’s measurement systems and management reporting.

Where necessary adapt the organizations structure, create reward systems and provide support and training to all impacted employees