Selling change management is about building support and buy-in for applying change management. Key point - when you ask someone to "do change management", you are asking them to make a change. When project teams begin applying a structured approach to managing the human side of change, they are changing how they work. When senior leaders are asked to effectively sponsor change, they are changing how they behave. When managers and supervisors coach their employees impacted by change, they are making a change.
Selling CM is fundamentally tied to Awareness and Desire in the ADKAR model. Those we are asking to apply change management need to first understand why change management is needed and the value of supporting and participating in change management.
Part of selling CM is about linking success with "people doing things differently". This link can happen on a project, organization or personal level.
On the webinar, we talked about 7 ways to make a compelling case:
- Clearly illustrate the impact of poorly managed change in concrete terms
- Show how not managing the people side of change creates risks to the organization
- Demonstrate the connection between change management and achieving project objectives
- Show the impact of change management on realizing return on investment
- Appeal to what the person values and cares about, both as an individual and as part of the organization
- Customize the message to the organization, its value systems, history and its culture
- Use examples people can see and feel from the business world and from the organization’s memory
Prosci is here to support your efforts in selling change management into the organization. Email changemanagement@prosci.com with any questions you might have.
What did you think about the webinar? Do you have some examples of cases you have made in your organization? What other approaches have you used to make the compelling case? Do you have value propositions for change management that have worked in the past?
Share your thoughts and visit this blog to see what others have to say!
Thanks.
3 comments:
When selling change management to IT project managers and sponsors of these project, the argument might be: I don't need change management, I can just force people to use this system in order to get their jobs done. What could be a compelling counter argument?
Tim,
1. I think the 4 column tool/exercise was fantastic. Although simple, it really helps crystalize the thinking about connecting people/behavior to "big bad project."
2. I think Awareness and Desire go hand-in-hand when "selling" change managment. What's the common approach to Awareness? I often encounter the logical approach from proponents and resistors of CM i.e. "let me show you why your perspective on change management is wrong and mine is right."
Of course, using logic/reasoning is important, BUT people are often more emotionally driven creatures...especially in times of major change. They often become extremely illogical and resistant.
To enable people to move through Desire, I think we have to realize that they won't choose change because "it make sense." I think we can have better success selling CM if we learn to focus more on emotional appeal. Give success and failure stories, but also get really good at understanding "them" first. Often, great logic, combined with a willingness to understand "them," is all that is needed to enable them to choose (i.e move through Desire).
3. katjaerickson - Force might keep you on timeline and budget FOR THIS PROJECT, but what about future projects? Will the same people impacted by this project be impacted by future projects? What about after that?
History with change plays a major role in the amount of resistance encountered. Whatever force used now will need to be greater each time future changes are attempted impact these same people.
In the end, it comes back to 'what is the goal?' If the goal is long term success and willingness to enable future change to have the desired business impact, force is a crippling choice. If the goal is 'we must make this change now or our business is dead,' then force makes much more sense.
First to katjaerickson - great comment and observation. I am writing a tutorial right now called "Managing the inevitable change" that addresses this very issue - should be out in the next few weeks. It is an unfortunate (but frequent) occurrence when someone takes this perspective. When this happens, some impacts include:
- resentment
- disengagement - people give the "well, if that's what you want" approach and check out
- history of poorly managed change - "once you lose your credibility..."
- people find work arounds which leads to suboptimization of the new system
- attrition - and there are real $ and business impacts when you lose valuable employees
The examples I'm going to use in my tutorial include: a new benefits system (that will reduce employees' benefits but must be done), a new system where the old one is removed and layoffs. Each seem 'inevitable' but can benefit from change management.
I'd take a look at the "why change management" tutorial on the Learning Center for some more thoughts.
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