There is no magic bullet to managing change, but it does take character and resolve. By this we mean the most important ingredient in the successful implementation of change across an organisation are the people undertaking the change.
There are many processes and systems that consultancies have tried to package and sell as the way to do it. These rarely work completely as each organisation is different and the change implementation needs to take these differences into account.
Managing change of any size or complexity is fundamentally about the people involved and their motivations to succeed. There are many ingredients that help and hinder the success of implementing change.
There are two key areas that undertaken well, will lead to the achievement of your Ambitions. The first is the Management of the Changes and the second is Stakeholder Management. The chart below shows more details about these two important aspects.
This is about the fundamentals of managing the change, in terms of a structured approach, a level of rigour and detail needed to ensure the activity is well planned and executed.
This is the second important ingredient. The successful implementation of change is about managing the people involved. This involves building an understanding with them about the changes required and then engaging with them with enthusiasm. It also means holding people to their promises, requiring a level of commitment from them to deliver their part of the planned activity.
By combining these two together, will bring successful outcomes.
There are a number of good practices that should definitely be adopted and will certainly improve the chances of success. Some of these are set out below.
If you do all of these, your project or programme of change will have a greater chance of success. However, having the right people is the number one most important ingredient without which none of the above will make much difference.