Hello all! I am working through the 6 meta trends in the change management data section of Prosci Chief Innovation Officer Tim Creasey’s post titled Change Management Trends Outlook 2024 and Beyond. The post is based off of Prosci’s Best Practices in Change Management – 12th Edition research.

As Tim’s post points out, the organization started conducting specific research on change management trends in 2013. From 2013-2023, six meta trends materialized in the data.

• Converging people, culture, and strategy
• Adopting Agile
• Increasing Awareness of the need for change management
• Leveraging technology
• Building organizational change capability
• Integrating change management and project management

So far, I’ve looked at building organizational change capability, increasing awareness of the need for change management, and integrating change management and project management. This week’s trend is…

Converging people, culture, and strategy

Tim’s post mentions that this trend popped up in 2019 and then was only amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. He says, “Watching leaders, change practitioners, organizations and disciplines bring these pieces together is promising in terms of where you can start to lead your organization going forward…We see this in the number of projects applying change management, DEI initiatives, development, social impact work, and especially in leaders stepping into their roles as sponsors during change and showing up to guide organizations in a new way.”

Admittedly, I don’t have a lot to add regarding this trend. Not a great thing to admit on ones own blog, I know, but I’m trying to keep it real and make the best use of all of our time. The thing I keep thinking about this trend, though, is the importance of defining our terms. Culture is the most obvious term that I think we need a clear, consistent definition of. Eryc Eyl provides a number of good examples of how it’s been defined over the years in his recently released book Stop Engaging Employees: Start making work more human and then includes his definition which is that culture is “what we think is expected of us.”

The thing I keep thinking about this trend, though, is the importance of defining our terms.

The other, related question I kept asking myself is how does this trend show up “in real life” at work? Is it in things like DEI initiative and social impact work that Tim mentioned? I decided that the answer to the “how does this show up” question depends on how you define terms like culture.

Closing thoughts

I want to hear from you! How have you seen the trend of converging people, culture, and strategy show up in work you’ve been a part of? Is this something you’ve noticed more in the past 5 years like the Prosci research seems to indicate?

Please post your thoughts and comments below. Let’s help each other become the best change management practitioners and enthusiasts we can be!

Thank you for reading. Until next time, take care and keep up the good work!

Mike