This is the final post in my series, My Change Management “Come From”. In the initial post, I touched on the importance of knowing the foundation from which you practice change management and shared three core beliefs that are part of my home base:

• Change management is more than telling and training
• It’s the business’s change, not the change team’s
• We create our future with our current actions

In subsequent posts, I took a closer look at the first two core beliefs as well as shared my thoughts on what the “people side” of change really is. In this post, I will dive deeper into my 3^rd core belief.

We create our future with our current actions.

I look at this belief through two lenses, what it means to me personally as a change practitioner and what it means to the people who I work with/for. Both lenses revolve around clarity and intentionality.

As a change management practitioner

As a change practitioner, I need to think about what my change management “come from” is. Do I have certain foundational beliefs that I operate from? For example, do I believe people are inherently resistant to change and it’s my job to overcome their resistance?

Once I’m aware of my core beliefs and know what’s negotiable in my approach and what’s not, I can take intentional actions that support my core values and decide how to handle situations that don’t align with who I want to be as a change management practitioner.

For example, if I believe a holistic approach to change initiatives is the most effective and humanistic approach, but the business I’m working with wants to focus solely on communication, training, and “mitigating resistance” I can make intentional decisions about I can (or whether I can) honor my approach and what the client is looking for me to do.

Working with a client

When working with a client, I believe it’s my job to help them clearly define as early in the process as possible (preferably before the initiative even kicks off) what success looks like, knowing there will be adjustments/tweaks along the way.

To use a technology rollout example, is “success” when the technology has been released into production, when X% of people are using the technology successfully, when certain metrics have been achieved (a defined amount of cost savings, a specific reduction in time it takes to do a transaction), something else? If we don’t know what success looks like up front, it’s pretty difficult to determine if an initiative was successful. If we help the business define success up front, however, things tend to go better.

If we don’t know what success looks like up front, it’s pretty difficult to determine if an initiative was successful.

Once we have a clear picture of what success looks like, I believe it’s my job to help the business intentionally align their actions in pursuit of that vision. For example, if the business is rolling out new technology in their contact center to increase efficiency and customer satisfaction, but their policies and procedures don’t support the change, I can help the business address this oft-forgotten potential barrier to success.

Creating our future with our current actions makes me think of a quote I read from author Byung Chul Han in his book The Burnout Society. “I am not interested in seeing how fast we can go if it costs us how far we’ve been called to go.”

Change practitioners are often called in to help ensure changes get successfully adopted quickly, usually via communications and training. Many times, though, while it’s crystal clear that this needs to happen quickly because there are other changes the business needs to have happen (like yesterday!), the definition of what “successfully adopted” means is murky at best. One of the many unfortunate negative consequences of this approach is the well-earned “flavor of the month” mentality that pervades many business environments.

I am not interested in seeing how fast we can go if it costs us how far we’ve been called to go.

Byung Chul Han

As change practitioners, it’s our job to help our clients focus on both speed and distance (not just speed). By doing so, we enable them to take clear and intentional steps towards achieving successful outcomes!

Thank you for reading. Please post your thoughts and comments below. Until next time, take care and keep up the good work!

Mike