Key Points
Change management involves intentionally transitioning an organization, or parts within it, from where it is now to where it wants to be.
There are many change management approaches on the market, which broadly fall into three categories, each having strengths and weaknesses.
To tackle the complexity that comes with many organizational changes, an integrated approach that brings together the best of many disciplines and evidence-based practices is a good bet.
What is Change Management?
The definition of change management from ACMP, a certifying body in the professional discipline of change management, is:
"[The] practice of applying a structured approach to transition an organization from a current state to a future state to achieve expected benefits."
This definition signals a few points of particular value to those of us looking to master the art and science of change:
Change management has within it our definition of change — the transition from our current to a desired future state.
Change management helps us achieve benefits, not simply movement. The definition is explicit about what reaching the future state involves: achieving expected benefits. Thus, it's not enough to move from Point A to Point B; we need to realize material results from doing so.
Change management requires "a" structured approach, not "the" structured approach. This definition, and the ACMP, is method agnostic. It’s not telling us which approach to use, as there are many change management approaches to choose from. What it does suggest is that we must be intentional about our process. It’s wise to ensure your choice of approach is appropriate for the type of change you are implementing and your business environment.
Three Perspectives on Change Management
There are countless approaches and change management models outlined in academic literature and the popular business press. Below, we review three major categories or perspectives to which many of these change management approaches align. Different approaches tend to emphasize one of these perspectives more than others, rather than being exclusive to a single perspective. In my experience, and in the change implementation framework I use to manage change efforts, it's useful to leverage all three.
Psychological Perspective: Influencing and Motivating People to Change
What it is
Change management approaches informed by psychology, or organizational development theory, tend to focus on human dynamics, such as changing an individual's behaviors and beliefs or overcoming resistance to change.
There are many theories that inform these approaches, which are generally similar. They can help us to understand what's going on when employees resist change and what it takes to motivate staff to adopt an organizational change.
For example, the ability, motivation, and opportunity framework helps us to understand that we can't simply increase people's knowledge about the change and skills to do it (ability). Although training to build relevant capability is important, we also need to understand how the change aligns with individuals’ goals and beliefs (motivation) and ensure they have the resources necessary to undertake the change (opportunity).
Why it's important but not sufficient
Supporting behavior change and influencing beliefs are essential parts of any change and can be overlooked if we simply focus on developing and delivering the solution on time and on budget. However, while attending to individual or group motivations is important, it's not sufficient. The change needs to be developed, resourced, managed, and sustained competently. We need a more holistic approach to effectively implement change in organizations.
Examples — Change Management Approaches Focused on the Psychology of Change
AMO- Ability- Motivation - Opportunity
Kurt Lewin Model — Unfreeze, Move, Refreeze
PROSCI ADKAR Method — Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement
Management & Leadership: Planning, Mobilizing, and Resourcing Change
What it is
Change management approaches that draw on management and leadership scholarship focus on things such as planning, organizing, directing, and resourcing change. These approaches tend to focus more on the organization's perspective as a whole rather than that of the individual within the organization. They highlight the required change skills for leadership and top management and often focus on transformational change.
Why it's important (but not sufficient)
To make change happen and create results, it does need to be competently managed. Such competence ensures that the change effort is on time, on schedule, and on budget — and that there are clarity, alignment, and commitment across the organization about the purpose and priority of the change.
However, some of the most popular change management methods in this category are not backed by strong academic evidence. In addition, they may emphasize the role of leaders so much that they leave a false impression that leadership from the top is all it takes to successfully bring about sustained change. It's necessary, but not in itself sufficient. There are other resources needed to create and maintain organizational change.
Successful change is a team effort that cuts across all levels of the organization. To be successful, we must often draw on the expertise of a skilled change management team, as well as contributions from managers at all levels, in addition to the input and support of impacted staff members.
Examples — Change Approaches in this Category
John Kotter — 8 Steps
Heifitz — Adaptive Change
Kanter, Jick and Stein — 10 Steps
Industrial Engineering: Systematic approaches to change
What it is
Technical approaches drawn from industrial engineering provide detailed and consistent methods for organizational change management. They are often systematic approaches or continuous improvement efforts focused on improving the quality or efficiency of current processes.
Why it's important (but not sufficient)
First, many of these methods focus on "defining the problem" as an initial step. This sets these apart from other organizational change approaches, which do not address that essential aspect of change explicitly.
Second, these methods are grounded in the idea that organizational change requires continuous effort and incremental improvements over time. Regardless of the type of change we are implementing, iterative improvement is almost always part of successful change efforts. Therefore, to some degree, the mindset and some of the tools designed for use in more methodical change management approaches have broad applicability.
However, not all organizational changes are planned or involve predictable or controllable processes. Some organizational changes demand more flexible and creative approaches to managing change.
Examples —Systematic Approaches to Change
Lean Six Sigma
Plan, Do, Check, Act
Total Quality Management
The Benefits of an Integrated Change Management Process
While each of these perspectives is useful, in reality, none by itself will help us meet the complexity we face in most periods of organizational change. To navigate that complexity demands an integrated change management approach that brings the best of many disciplines to the table.
When managing organizational change, you should expect that you, or more likely your broader change management team, will be called on to demonstrate competence in all of the following areas:
Stakeholder engagement
Leadership & General Management
Training and Coaching
Teaming (High functioning temporary change management teams)
Technical expertise related to change solution being implemented
It can be helpful to think of change management as not so much a separate, unique discipline but more as an expert ability to apply and adapt tools and methods from various disciplines. In fact, research indicates successful change management processes include elements that are:
Complementary — Recognize that all disciplines are necessary, and none by itself is sufficient
Compensatory — Strengths in some change competencies can make up for weaknesses, but not absence, in others.
Scalable — Adaptive to meet the needs of the specific changes (scale, type, impact).
But wait, do any of these Change Management approaches work?
As noted previously, change management is about integrating effective practices from many different disciplines. Rather than looking for evidence of the overall effectiveness of something called "change management," it is more useful to understand the effectiveness of its component parts.
For instance, management research indicates that:
Clarity of vision and goals, as well as ongoing goal monitoring, are linked with improved performance, but it matters that you use the right type of goals for your situation.
Fair processes are linked with more openness and acceptance of the change and can mitigate, to an extent, negative outcomes of change experienced by staff.
Explanations, engagement, and communication influence how people perceive the organization, leaders, and organizational changes.
Trust between team members and leadership is linked to productive risk-taking, going above and beyond, and overall task performance. So it's important to use change practices that support trust building (e.g., engagement, communication, walking the talk.)
Training supports more effective adoption of a change than providing written materials alone. When training is matched with coaching, it supports even better learning outcomes.
Creating teams to develop, lead, and manage change is an effective strategy because only through a team can you deliver the diversity of skills and perspectives necessary to competently and legitimately lead a change.
People's perceptions of change are linked to their belief that the organization can competently manage the change and the demonstrated commitment of the organization to the change and supporting staff to navigate it.
The evidence outlined above, and much more, indicates that using an intentional approach that leverages evidence-based practices that support learning, engagement, effective management of resources, and performance is effective. In addition to the change management process used, it's also important to recognize that change success is impacted by two other factors: the quality of the change solution (content), as well as the environment in which the change is implemented (context).
Change management is a complex process, and there are countless change management approaches and methods that can be used. In order to effectively manage change, it's important to have a framework that takes into account all of the different aspects of organizational change. The three perspectives we've outlined above provide a useful lens through which to view change efforts. No single perspective is enough on its own, so it's important to use an integrated approach that draws on all three perspectives. Learn more about our integrated change management framework here.
References
Fixsen, D., Naoom, S., Blase, K., Friedman, R., Wallace, F. (2005). Implementation Research: A Synthesis of the Literature. Tamps, FL: University of South Florida, Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, National Implementation Research Network.
Haddad, S., & Kotnour, T. (2015). Integrating the organizational change literature: a model for successful change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(2), 234-262.