There are many instances when a client calls upon a
consulting firm to come in and improve their process. The client is in a state of complete
confusion and frustration. They have
spent time, money, and resources to create a new process which they believe to
have a positive impact on a large part of the organization. The client states that there is substantial
resistance to adopting the new process. Often
those who have no choice but to adopt, due to the large effect to their
everyday duties, are angry about the change and have little confidence in the
team that implemented the new process.
The client believes that the new process brings increased efficiency and
accuracy to the business, but feels that the process still needs improvement in
order for the employees to eagerly adopt.
The consulting firm is called in to analyze the process and
recommend improvements. Many times,
while the process can use improvements, the heart of the issue lies with
ineffective or nonexistent Organizational Change Management (OCM) when the
process was rolled out. New
implementations, can be a very positive change to the organization, but poor
change management will result in low adoption, frustrated employees, and
overall resentment. Low adoption can be
due to poor communication, a lack of visible enthusiastic executive support,
improper education, or failure to encourage or reward participation in the
design of improvements.
According to the Prosci™ 2009 Best Practices in Change Management
benchmarking report, only 17% of projects with poor change management met or
exceeded the project objectives, while 95% of projects with excellent change
management met or exceeded their objectives.
Before starting your next project, plan for managing the people side of
change as they are either your biggest advocates or your biggest detractors. The following table represents some common
issues in making changes and OCM tools that can be leveraged to employ
effective change management.
