It is likely that you have heard the phrase change is inevitable, and talking about the business environment; one could say that transformation is not unavoidable but necessary. Companies need to adapt, innovate, adjust, modify, advance, and develop their processes to keep growing and remain in the market. Most of the time companies seek higher revenues, cost reductions, efficiency, high quality, and productivity, and the only way to achieve the desired results is by promoting change. The business environment is continuously evolving, and worldwide competition increases the needs for a company to stay ahead and to fit its structure to new technology, laws, regulations, and policies. Organizations not only need to become comfortable with change but to initiate it.
Many people feel cautious about change, but companies face a fast-changing environment with increasing and fluctuating demands, and they cannot afford to remain quiet in a world where innovations lead. Initiating change within an organization is extremely difficult and complicated. We do not like uncertainty, and change initiatives are often received with resistance within organizations. However, to compete, people need to be flexible. According to Kotter (1996), an average of 70% of all significant change efforts in organizations fail. If we think about it, change fails for many reasons such as the lack of a plan that guides the transition to new ways of working, as well we may fail because we did not define why change is necessary, or because we ignored the culture and did not invest enough resources. Companies fail to implement changes because they do not follow up on the process of change, because they do not receive or give enough feedback, and because they have weak communication channels. Considering all the reasons for why change fails, Jonh Kotter proposed a useful model to guide transitions in his book titled Leading Change. He identified eight steps that an organization must follow to promote, lead, and successfully implement changes (J. Kotter, 1996).
The first step is to establish a sense of urgency. In this stage, organizational leaders need to identify why change is necessary to improve or to remain ahead of the competition. It may be useful to expose threats and to examine opportunities. Communication is essential and the leaders promoting change can start honest discussions and develop different scenarios to convince people to consider new alternatives. Our goal is to convince people that transitions are necessary to grow.
The second step proposed by Kotter (1996) is to form a powerful coalition. Promoting change is not enough. We need to lead it. In this stage, we need to build a team of leaders and influencers that can propel and secure the success of new projects or ideas. It will be necessary to reinforce a team-working environment led by people truly committed.
The next stage is called developing a vision and strategy. If we think about it, one of the critical elements of success is to establish our goals. Where we want to be, and what we want to accomplish. This step consists in creating a vision for change. We need to gather all our ideas and solutions, and being able to establish clear objectives. We can determine all the values that are central to change and create a strategy that allows us to see what we want to achieve.
Once we have established clear objectives, we need to convey them. Communicating the change vision is the fourth step to follow according to Kotter (1996). Communicate our ideas is not just telling people what to do. It implies to create successful back and forth communication channels where we can expose our vision, and where we can learn and understand other’s points of view.
The fifth step is empowering employees for broad-based action. This step is one of the most critical phases of the model because, during this stage, we need to be able to remove obstacles. To secure the success of our change efforts, we need to give enough support, which implies useful feedback and help. It will be necessary to recognize and reward people for their contributions, to identify who are resisting to change, and support them to share the team’s perspective.
The next step is to generate short-term wins. Establishing short-term goals will help us to track our progress, and it will keep our team motivated to pursue further accomplishments.
Consolidating gains and producing more change. As we stated before, organizations face an enormous pressure to improve their products, processes, and costs continually. Change must be part of a continuous improvement cycle, and we cannot declare victory at any time.
The final step suggested by Kotter (1996) is anchoring new approaches in the culture. Change must be part of the driving motor of the organization. Change must be part of the culture, and our employees need to develop the capability to adapt and promote new and higher goals.
In history, we have seen how powerful organizations such as Nokia and Xerox among others have been affected by disruptive technologies, and those companies are a clear example of why organizations need to promote a culture that embraces and continually encourages change. In conclusion, the ability to manage, adapt, and support organizational change is an essential ability required in the workplace today.
References
W. Burke(2017). Organizational Change: Theory & Practice. 5TH edition.