Change Management Gotcha's | Horizontal Change Management

A borrowed title from a post by Connie Moore of Forrester entitled: ?Gotcha?s for Change Management for Business Process Improvement?.

The Five gotcha?s- middle management, unions, talent management, change prioritization and tying downsizing to process improvement- from her post came from panelists:

Connie added the need for a communication plan as her own choice.

This is an interesting list.

Middle Management- always the scapegoat gotcha stakeholders. Loss of power was the primary reason stated for pushback from this group. Involving them is the suggested approach. OK simple change management. Would they be involved in reducing the power they are worried about? No worry about change is unfounded?

Unions- another great scapegoat. ?Change management gets harder in environments with unions?, from the article. Would that be because unions force transparency, collaboration and dialogue? (my question). ?I have seen process transformation and change work successfully in a union shop, but it required a closely aligned working relationship between business execs, the HR exec, and the CIO?, from the article. The change was going to work without that? (me again).

Talent Management- this one might make it on my list. The suggested approach of software based Six Sigma building makes me question its addition. I don?t know much about green belts and black belts as change agents, but on the surface it sounds like preparation for war?

Change Prioritization- this one is a good one too. ?Not sure if makes it to a gotcha list. Prioritize and reduce was the suggestion. Combine could be added. Most of the engagements I am on have potential for combining (and therefore reducing) at the same time. Beware though- ?reduce? is a synonym for ?eliminate?.

Keep process improvement separate from downsizing- process improvement should free up resources. If you do not have an outlet for that resource to fill- growth, another initiative, some new innovation- then you have too many resources. Wouldn?t that be downsizing? With change it is usually better to be honest than sneaky. Separating the two might play out as sneaky.

Connie added a communication plan. Again simple change management. ??communication, communication, communication? is the single most important part of change management?s success or failure.? from the article. If we are talking about the communication necessary to collaborate yes. ?Never too much communication? is an urban myth that refuses to die. You absolutely CAN over-communicate. Tons of something not so good does not make it any better (it just makes more not so good).

I picked on them a little.

It is a good list and certainly a good list to start dialogue. It is also a surprisingly mixed list (strategy, stakeholder connection, competency focus with a dash of culture) which gets big kudos.

Just make sure your own gotcha list pays attention to where change is going, who will be involved (and what skills are needed), how the structure of the organization will help or not and whether you really? have the resources necessary to get change to happen.

Technorati Tags: change management blog, downsizing, Insights, middle management, process improvement

Source: http://horizontalchange.com/2012/08/change-management-gotchas/

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