Key challenges with change management and how to overcome them
Leading an organisation or business through successful change is not easy. Change management difficulties are common throughout all professional fields of work. With experience in training and leading the heaviest and fastest-moving forces from the prairies of Alberta, West Canada to helping the South West of England with business development planning and training solutions, we’ve seen and overcome multiple challenges with change management. In this article, we’ll cover the most common change management difficulties and how you can overcome them.
Common challenges with change management:
Lack of support and active sponsorship from executives
From working with many business clients on their change management, our experience has indicated that executives are more often than not, unaware of their role within the change management process. They sometimes don’t understand the resources required or the purpose of the change. This misunderstanding can lead to inconsistent communication within an organisation and many other change management difficulties, such as a lack of buy-in and engagement.
To gain successful change management or to meet any project objectives, executive sponsorship is key. Effective sponsorship and communication can mobilise and activate an organisation to progress. How other employees interpret an absent or inactive sponsor is an indication of how important or unimportant the initiative is.
When overcoming this challenge with change management, leadership development is an effective place to start to gain strength in active executive sponsorship.
Misalignment as a result of ineffective communication
Without transparent communication misalignment and confusion can become an issue for groups impacted by change management, raising further challenges. Communication builds awareness and aligns organisational goals. It avoids participants spending valuable time and resources clarifying roles and expectations.
We believe effective communication during change management starts with delivery. In our experience employees or teams prefer to receive business announcements or messages about change from leaders at the top of the organisation. And if it comes to personal messages about change, where employees need an immediate response to questions such as “What’s in it for me?” it is more effective for an immediate supervisor to communicate with them.
This challenge with change management can be overcome through consent building exercises. Consent building is making sure your team understands all about the ‘why’ of the change management before the ‘how’. If leaders are clear on the communication of why changes are taking place, the rest of the team are more likely to engage with the change, rather than question it.
A negative culture and attitude towards change
Change management difficulties may also stem from a history of failed changes or resistant behaviours. Negative attitudes to change can lower performance, trust and engagement within an organisation. A culture as such, rife with poor attitudes and internal politics will encourage individual priorities and disruptive thinking when it comes to change management.
Therefore, a shift in employee or team mindsets would be beneficial to shifting the culture overall, and aid the environment of the organisation. Team building exercises can help to un-do the resistance to change. Followed by decision support training, where the complex nature or history of failed changes can re-new. Teams and management can focus on fixing the internal politics by letting go of personal agendas and completing these forms of training as a group.
Overall, successful change management will always depend on the environment where the change takes place. Managing individual transitions is key, however creating a structured approach to change management and how to overcome the potential change management difficulties specific to your organisation or business is crucial. Here at Evocatus we specialise in help with business compliance, with expertise in change management.
If you need to gain control of your organisation going through change management, we can help you create a systematic approach to dealing with the transition and implementing the strategies and changes required to help your team accept, understand and adapt. Contact us today for more information or a consultation.
Leading an organisation or business through successful change is not easy. Change management difficulties are common throughout all professional fields of work. With experience in training and leading the heaviest and fastest-moving forces from the prairies of Alberta, West Canada to helping the South West of England with business development planning and training solutions, we’ve seen and overcome multiple challenges with change management. In this article, we’ll cover the most common change management difficulties and how you can overcome them.
Common challenges with change management:
1. Lack of support and active sponsorship from executives
From working with many business clients on their change management, our experience has indicated that executives are more often than not, unaware of their role within the change management process. They sometimes don’t understand the resources required or the purpose of the change. This misunderstanding can lead to inconsistent communication within an organisation and many other change management difficulties, such as a lack of buy-in and engagement.To gain successful change management or to meet any project objectives, executive sponsorship is key. Effective sponsorship and communication can mobilise and activate an organisation to progress. How other employees interpret an absent or inactive sponsor is an indication of how important or unimportant the initiative is.When overcoming this challenge with change management, leadership development is an effective place to start to gain strength in active executive sponsorship.
2. Misalignment as a result of ineffective communication
Without transparent communication misalignment and confusion can become an issue for groups impacted by change management, raising further challenges. Communication builds awareness and aligns organisational goals. It avoids participants spending valuable time and resources clarifying roles and expectations. We believe effective communication during change management starts with delivery. In our experience employees or teams prefer to receive business announcements or messages about change from leaders at the top of the organisation. And if it comes to personal messages about change, where employees need an immediate response to questions such as “What’s in it for me?” it is more effective for an immediate supervisor to communicate with them. This challenge with change management can be overcome through consent building exercises. Consent building is making sure your team understands all about the ‘why’ of the change management before the ‘how’. If leaders are clear on the communication of why changes are taking place, the rest of the team are more likely to engage with the change, rather than question it.
3. A negative culture and attitude towards change
Change management difficulties may also stem from a history of failed changes or resistant behaviours. Negative attitudes to change can lower performance, trust and engagement within an organisation. A culture as such, rife with poor attitudes and internal politics will encourage individual priorities and disruptive thinking when it comes to change management. Therefore, a shift in employee or team mindsets would be beneficial to shifting the culture overall, and aid the environment of the organisation. Team building exercises can help to un-do the resistance to change. Followed by decision support training, where the complex nature or history of failed changes can re-new. Teams and management can focus on fixing the internal politics by letting go of personal agendas and completing these forms of training as a group.
Overall, successful change management will always depend on the environment where the change takes place. Managing individual transitions is key, however creating a structured approach to change management and how to overcome the potential change management difficulties specific to your organisation or business is crucial. Here at Evocatus we specialise in help with business compliance, with expertise in change management. If you need to gain control of your organisation going through change management, we can help you create a systematic approach to dealing with the transition and implementing the strategies and changes required to help your team accept, understand and adapt. Contact us today for more information or a consultation.
