Change Management in Organizations

• Effective change management identifies conflicts and addresses needs, bridging the gap between executives, project teams, and those affected by change.
• Stakeholder adoption of changes significantly impacts project success.
• Projects are more likely to fail due to resistance than technical or management issues.
• Creating stakeholder ownership and shared meaning is critical throughout a project's lifecycle.

Reactions to Change

• Individuals respond to change differently, ranging from denial to acceptance.
• Some are "Change Junkies," willingly engaging in change, while others are "Resistors" who dislike it.

Impact of Resistance

• Resistance can slow projects, create conflict, and hinder sustainable implementation.
• At the organizational level, resistance leads to failure to update, low morale which impacts productivity, and reduced competitiveness.

Reactions and Responses

• Change can cause fear and a loss of control, stemming from the unknown, failure, hurt, or success.
• Managing fear is influenced by personality, cognitive ability, upbringing, culture, beliefs, skills, past experiences, and peer groups.
• Uncertainty replaces the known when change occurs.

Types of Reactions & Responses

• Mover: Quickly learns and moves toward the new objective, and needs support to lead others.
• Minimalist: Wants to know expectations and change as little as possible, expectations need to be clear and they should be involved early.
• Waiter: Adapts slowly when enough people change, and needs patience and support connecting with a "mover".
• Resistor: Tries to fight the change, needs a management plan to be made early with awareness and maintained closeness.
• Quitter: Opts-out and leaves, which is often for the best.

Reasons for Resistance

• Fear of the unknown
• Perceived loss of status or power.
• Lack of understanding why changes are happening.
• Perception that change is not necessary or is a bad idea
• Perception that change is not possible
• Lack of trust in facilitators of change.
• Poor timing due to being overworked or overwhelmed.
• Risk of change is seen as greater than maintaining the status quo.
• Peer pressure
• Disruption of interpersonal relationships.
• Threats to personal values or ideas.

Kotter and Schlesinger on Resisting Change

• Focus on self-interest, where employees are more concerned about the consequences of change for themselves rather than the organization.
• Misunderstanding occurs when communication is lacking or when incorrect or inadequate information is provided.
• Low tolerance for change arises from the security and stability of working in a certain way for years, making it hard to adapt to the unknown.
• Differing assessments of the situation leads to there being employees who agree with changes against those who do not.

Managing Change with the 20/30/50 Rule

• Focus on fostering the 20% who are change-friendly and make them champions.
• Manage the 30% who are resistors.
• Influence the 50% who are fence-sitters.
• Never presume you must have buy-in from everyone before progress can be made on changes.

Identifying Resistance

• Identifying resistance includes noting a lack of participation, emotional responses like anger and complaining, absenteeism, finding means to circumvent the changes, and lower productivity.

Methods to Deal With Resistance

• Education: Use when employees lack information, it involves communication and can persuade people to implement change, but this is time consuming.
• Participation: Use when initiating change and you lack sufficient information to design the change; involves potential resisters and makes people more committed, but is time consuming and may result in inappropriate change.
• Facilitation: Use training and provide support.
• Negotiation: Offer incentives, can diffuse resistance in an easy way but it may be expensive.
• Coercion: Use if speed is essential to change; possess power but is essential and can overcome any resistance.

Minimizing Resistance

• Explain why the change is happening and identify the related benefits.
• Invite, answer questions, solicit participation, and include early involvement to answer questions and explain benefits of change.
• Set standards and clear targets while recognizing and rewarding efforts.
• Over-communicate
• Offer training in new skills and coaching in new values and behavior.
• Build relationships
• Give more feedback than usual.
• Allow for resistance, helping people let go of the "old".
• Measure results and analyze whether the correct path is being taken, and make corrections.

Planning For Change

• Utilize tools like Stakeholder Registry, Change Impact Assessment (CIA), Coalition, Change Capacity and Receptivity Review, Resistance Chart, Communication Plans, and Supportive Listening.
• Build a culture open to change through a formal Change Management Process to deal with ongoing changes and foster/build resiliency in stakeholders.

Handling The Change

• Consider changes to processes/policies/technology/work location/personnel/role/compensation/culture.

Change Capacity Review (OCC)

• Organizational capacity for change (OCC) is conceptualized as readiness to respond to volatile environmental context, composed of human skills, formal systems and procedures, and organizational culture, values, and norms.

Eight Dimensions of Organizational Capacity for Change (OCC)

• Trustworthy leaders
• Trusting followers
• Capable champions
• Involved middle management
• Systems thinking
• Communication Systems
• Accountable culture
• Innovative culture

Employee Receptivity Assessment

• Assess employees before, during, and after the change.
• Identify those who will be unreceptive, neutral, and receptive.
• Determine if they are influencers.
• Create a coaching plan to ensure they remain committed
• Figure out how resistance will be dealt with.
• Determine if Awareness, Desire, Knowledge and Ability is present.

Communications

• Stakeholders will need clear and customized communication.
• Transparency involving consistent and clear communication across multiple channels will limit resistance.

Strategies

• Customize the communication strategy.
• Involve teams, outline changes and establish processes.
• Put a training plan in place for new hires, compensation adjustments
• Look for other organizational help

Supportive Listening

• Remove distractions, look at the speaker, and not interrupting.
• It involves active 2 way listening, allowing stakeholders to voice concerns and provide input.

Handling Resistance - Summary

• Be proactive when encountering resistance.
• Understand why resistance happens.
• Known what resistance looks like.
• Learn how to manage resistance.
• Understanding and getting to know stakeholders.

This lesson explores resistance to change in organizations and strategies for managing it. It covers topics such as employees' reasons for resisting change, the 20/30/50 rule in change management, and factors influencing individuals' ability to manage fear associated with change. It also explains why complete buy-in from every employee is not always essential.