Your Change Management Guide
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Fair warning this is a long post with a lot of information within. The term Change Management scares many people when they hear it, and the length of this article may be intimidating; but once you are familiar with it you realise that done right, it shouldn’t be intimidating at all.
Don’t worry about memorising all of this, or being an expert on the first read; this is a page you should bookmark and come back to for reference. Especially in future posts where we refer back to this.
We will be splitting this post into several TL;DRs, but I want this information in one place, so you can use it as a reference moving forward.
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When I interview for roles, or come on board as a consultant, especially when businesses are embarking on a technological change journey, I ask: “Is everyone on board with this new direction?”, “Are there any sceptical parties about this direction you want to head?”, or similar such questions.
I do so because I haven’t in the past, and it made my life exceptionally difficult. Change is scary for many people; people fear what they don’t understand, and fight what they fear. Typically, I am viewed as the embodiment of that change, and so they fight me; or at least they try to if I don’t do my job correctly. That job is to be an agent of change to help the business reach their goals and objectives.
With this post we will give you an outline of the core change management terminology, and the way in which I like to think about it. This is not comprehensive by any means, but it is a good starting point.
There is no “correct” way of delivering change, however the confidence you are able to project whilst doing so it a critical factor in its success. So, read this, read other articles, find the way that works for you. That’s what I did, and today I am going to take you through what I found that has worked for me when delivering change in businesses.
What do we mean by “Change Management”?
It is important to state at this point that I have not been able to find a universal glossary of “Change Management” terminology. Different methods and approaches view it in different ways. Which can make it very difficult to start learning about.
I am going to introduce you to the way in which I have been able to understand it and implement it successfully; which is to break it down into smaller more manageable and comprehensible steps. Change in business takes time, and breaking it down into smaller steps make it easier to accomplish for a variety of reasons.
N.B. The structure of this post moving forward
The majority of these start definitions with the word “Change” to distinguish them from their standard business counterparts; fair warning you will read “Change” so much that it may begin to lose all meaning.
We will also encompass each term introduced in this post in quotation marks and italicise them i.e. “Change Management”; this is so you, the reader, can easily identify new terms introduced - they do not need this all the time when using them, and outside of this post we may not choose to do so. This means when you see a term formatted like this; there is a definition for it somewhere in this post.
For each new term introduced we will provide a definition at the next break in the narrative, meaning if you want to view the definition in context you can look at the surrounding paragraphs to help solidify your understanding.
Let’s start with a definition everyone can agree on: “Change Management”
Change Management: A term encompassing all methods and approaches to: plan, deliver, and support businesses and their employees during a process that alters the way their business operates.
The goal of “Change Management” is to navigate businesses through their “Change Journey” to maximise positive morale, whilst minimising negative morale, amongst employees.
Change Journey: The process of undergoing change, and the delivery of strategies that enact change.
This “Change Journey” can be a change in process, personnel, structure, or anything that alters the current course of the business’ “direction of travel” through the delivery of at least one “Change Strategy”.
Direction of Travel: The current path that a business is on, and informs their standard operating procedures or day-to-day decision making
Change Strategy: A plan that helps reach the “Change Goal”; typically focused on delivering one type of change and comprised of one or more “Change Actions”.
Change Goal: The goal of a “Change Strategy”, which is what we want to accomplish by embarking on this “Change Journey”.
Change Action: A decision that is made during the “Change Journey” which will move the business towards its “Change Goal”.
Think of it this way: Once you identify a “Change Goal”, you embark on a “Change Journey”, which you navigate with your “Change Strategies” which are a combination of one or more “Change Actions”.
All fancy business ways of saying: identify your goal, make a plan to reach that goal, break that plan into steps, execute those steps. There’s a bit more to it than this, but we will get into that in the next section.
We come to another point of disagreement which is around the “States of Change”, where some models view this as the state for the overall “Change Journey” I prefer to look at this at the “Change Action” Level. Some models call the “States of Change”: Current, Transition, and Future [1]; however I think that is confusing because once you reach future it becomes current and it never ends. So I define the “States of Change” like this:
States of Change: As you go through a “Change Journey” each “Change Action”, and “Change Strategies”, will go through three states of change:
Planned: Yet to be started
Active: Currently being delivered
Completed or Terminated: Delivery completed or abandoned in light of learnings.
This definition celebrates when a “Change Action” or “Change Strategy” is completed, as well as gives the option to reflect an item is no longer needed due to our learnings on the “Change Journey”. This is important because as we will see shortly with our definition of the types of change; businesses can have multiple active “Change Strategies” on a “Change Journey”.
How do we deliver a “Change Strategy”?
So how do we deliver our “Change Strategy”? Well, there are multiple ways of doing so with each of the powerhouses in the field having their own “Change Frameworks” and everyone having their preferences.
Change Framework: A model through which we can guide a business towards their “Change Goal” through a “Change Strategy”.
There are a lot of “Change Frameworks” out there but we will summarise some of the key aspects that you need to know to improve your skills as an agent of change.
Change Agent: A “Change Agent”, or agent of change, is an individual who is jointly responsible for helping the business navigate their transformational journey alongside the change and business leaders
As technological leaders we will be change agents at one point or another in our career, as one of primary sources for both types of change can stem from technology. As you progress in your career you may well end up as the “Change Leader” for a “Change Strategy”.
Change Leader: A “Change Leader”, or leader of change, is the individual who is responsible for overseeing the delivery of the “Change Journey”. This individual can either be a part of the business or a third party.
One of the key responsibilities of a “Change Leader” is to identify the business landscape. If we go back to those questions I ask when joining a business, those are key questions in doing so. To identify the landscape you want to find out:
10 Key Questions for Change Leaders at the start of a Change Journey
Where is the business currently?
Where does the business want to go i.e. what is the business’ “Change Goal”?
What is the type of change this “Change Goal” wants to achieve?
What are the benefits of achieving the “Change Goal”?
What are the current obstacles preventing the business from doing currently realising its “Change Goal”?
How long could this “Change Journey” take to complete?
What technological, operational, cultural, or financial restrictions do we have on the “Change Journey”?
Who is enthusiastic about this change?
Who will support this change?
Who is going to try and prevent this change?
The answers to these questions inform the creation of the “Change Strategy”, and we will talk about the types of change shortly, however before we do the last three questions will help you identify the groups of key people in your “Change Journey“
Change Champion: A member of the business who is fully behind the “Change Goal”. “Change Champions” are key to delivery of a “Change Strategy” as they will help in the delivery of “Change Actions” by helping reduce levels of “Change Resistance” and “Change Fatigue”
Change Advocate: A member of the business who supports, and has a positive outlook on, the “Change Goal”. “Change Advocates” will help support initiatives, and be vocal proponents of change within the business, helping reduce levels of “Change Resistance” and “Change Fatigue”.
Change Detractor: A member of the business who is against the “Change Goal” and is either sceptical of its benefits, or outright opposed to its implementation.
It might be tempting to try and exclude the “Change Detractors” from the process entirely, however this is a bad idea. This group will be:
The primary source of “Change Inertia” when starting the “Change Journey”
The group with the highest levels of “Change Resistance”
The fastest group to experience “Change Fatigue”
One of the largest sources of “conflict” throughout the “Change Journey”
Problematic during times of “crisis”, and may try and use this to generate “Change Resistance” amongst employees and potentially damage morale.
We have mentioned some terms in the previous definitions and descriptions which we will now define, some of which sound much more dramatic than they are.
Change Resistance: An opposition to change in the business either through passive or direct means.
Change Fatigue: Disengagement or lack of enthusiasm in the change process due to a large amount of change happening in a short period. Can be a source of “Change Resistance”.
Crisis: An unexpected event that requires attention before continuing the “Change Journey” or implementation of a “Change Strategy”.
Conflict: A disagreement between parties involved in the “Change Journey”.
Change Inertia: Lack of willingness or ability to start the “Change Journey” or the tendency to advocate for the continued use of current operating practices.
Now let’s talk about how to manage “Change Detractors” with the key terms now defined.
The early “Change Actions” in your “Change Journey” should look to placate or assuage any doubts of the “Change Detractors”. They are also a valuable voice in the construction of the “Change Strategy” as they may see points that “Change Leaders”, “Change Champions”, and “Change Advocates” might be blind to in their enthusiasm for this change. At the end of the day as President Lyndon B. Johnson said about a known critic J. Edgar Hoover:
It's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.
President Lyndon B. Johnson - The New York Times (31 October 1971) [2]
One way to handle “Change Detractors”, or at least prepare to do so, is to analyse each of your “Change Actions”, and your “Change Strategy” as a whole, looking critically for areas where people might be unhappy or raise points of “conflict”. You should then prepare counter arguments to these in advance so you are prepared to work through a solution with all the groups.
This is a good way of handling dissent in business, as if the “Change Detractors” are not willing to engage to help make the problem better or work together to find solutions, then it is clear that they have no interest in being productive members of the business.
It is important to remember “Change Detractors” can be right, and you need to adapt the “Change Strategy” and maybe even the “Change Goal” to reflect this situation. It is a poor leader who remains wedded to a plan in the face of contradictory evidence.
To this point, when you are delivering a “Change Strategy”, it is vitally important that you review it after every completed “Change Action”. Like any journey you might be forced to make detours along the way, and that’s fine; however you can do more damage than good if you ignore this and just plough on in the face of currently insurmountable obstacles.
Here is a flowchart that illustrates how I approach the delivery of a “Change Strategy”:
You can see during the delivery of each “Change Action” that there are breakpoints; these breakpoints are triggered by periodic review, encountering “crisis”, or if we have finished the change action. At each of these breakpoints we review the “Change Action”, either resuming or making amendments as necessary. Then, once we complete the “Change Action”, we review our “Change Strategy” making amendments as necessary too. Then we pick the next “Change Action” and continue until we reach our “Change Goal”.
This delivery of a “Change Strategy” is wholly separate from the delivery of a “Change Action” as each change action might need a different method of delivery based upon the teams involved. This process looks to ensure that the “Change Journey” continues making progress.
Fundamental Rules of Change
Before we dive into the the different types of change, here are some fundamental rules that I have learned and use as guiding principles regarding change and how to enact change.
The rules of change:
Businesses/People typically don’t like change; they will tolerate it if they believe it will be worth it in the end and they see progress to towards that goal.
If businesses/people experience minor setbacks or don’t see continual progress, they will question the value of the change.
If businesses/people do choose to change, lasting change happens slowly.
If businesses/people are forced to change, they will try to change back.
In times of stress, businesses/people will try to return to tried and tested methods or approaches assuming correlation implies causation.
These may seem fatalistic, but the more you think about them, the more you realise their accuracy. Take changing your current diet and exercise regime to lose weight:
You probably won’t like dieting or increasing exercise, but you’ll keep doing it if you see weight loss or changes in your body.
Then, one week your weight loss stagnates, or your the same exercise feels harder one week; you start to question if it’s even worth it.
If you try extreme diets or exercise plans that are not sustainable you will likely revert to your previous diet, but if you gradually change your diet and exercise regime you are more likely to maintain this lifestyle.
If you are forced to do it, you will try and sneak the things you enjoy and as soon as you are no longer forced to do it you probably won’t keep it up.
Finally, when you are stressed or something happens it is likely that you will revert to old habits and return to dieting when things normalise again.
How do I know this? Because I have experienced it myself, and I have seen others experience the same things. I could give you examples for smoking, drinking, cleaning, the list goes on; and the same is true for businesses.
This is why I mentioned earlier about breaking “Change Journeys” into smaller and more manageable steps. If you make your change journey a marathon with only one deliverable - reaching the “Change Goal” - you will experience “Change Fatigue”; breaking it down makes it easier to mitigate and manage.
In a future post we outline the example of changes in hybrid working brought about by the COVID-19 lockdowns and the impact of the 2023/24 economic downturn which follows this exact pattern.
Rules for enacting change
Be Compassionate: We need to realise that change is scary for some; people fear what they don’t understand, and fight what they fear - as an agent of change you are the embodiment of the change that they will fight.
Be Responsive: We need to be willing to change our plan to reflect the current circumstances and ensure we reach the goal we want to achieve.
Be Adaptable: We need to be prepared for resistance to the change we are wanting to enact, be sympathetic to their concerns, and adapt as necessary.
Be Prepared: We need to consider as many of the consequences that may arise from, and during, the change as possible and plan accordingly.
You can remember these rules for enacting change, because if you don’t your delivery of the change strategy will be CRAP (yes, this was intentional).
Now you might think that these rules are a load of crap, but I used to think that about all of change management before I realised its importance. The same holds true for these rules; the more you experience change in businesses, the more you will realise their value.
Out of all of them I would say the first is the most important. I said it in the subtitle for this post; the term “Change Management” will strike fear into the hearts of many. I think this is because they conflate change management with one particular type of change - the one that involves layoff and restructuring, when that is only one type of change that exists.
What are the types of change?
Here we encounter another difficulty; there is no unified or agreed upon definitions of the type of change, or at least one that I have been able to find.
Harvard Business School outlines two types of change: Adaptive and Transformational [3] however these terms are not exclusively used or universally adopted. Indeed using Adaptive and Technical with a different definition for Adaptive [4].
This is a pattern in change management nomenclature that annoyingly repeats itself; so we will define our own change terms with straightforward meanings.
The way in which we have created our types of change is to create as flexible a system as possible to reflect the: scope, impact/speed, and business functions affected by the change.
The scope of the change.
Minor: This class of change will typically impact a small section of the business.
Moderate: This type of change will typically impact multiple parts of the business.
Major: This type of change will most likely impact all parts of the business.
The impact and speed of the change.
Gradual: This type of change is characterised by minor and ongoing modifications implemented incrementally over time. A very slow and low impact process which sees, business functions gradually change.
Evolutionary: This type of change is characterised by significant yet gradual changes to existing processes and infrastructures implemented as the business continues to develop. Whilst the speed of this type of change may be slow, it can be quick, and often has a significant impact on the businesses way of operating.
Revolutionary: This type of change involves a fundamental and often radical transformation affecting the way in which a business operates; typically adding new capabilities to businesses or redefining ways of working. The speed of this change is usually rapid as businesses try to capitalise on the identified opportunity and is likely to be disruptive.
Reactive: This type of change occurs in response to external forces or unforeseen events. It is always unplanned, requires quick and decisive action from the business, and is highly disruptive.
The parts of the business that are affected by the change
Cultural: The transformation in the values and behaviours or a business. This type of change targets the essence of the company aiming to realign the culture of the business to new objectives or values.
Technological: The transformation of a business’ technology solutions to improve the business’ operating practices. This type of change targets both internally developed technological solutions and external providers of solutions.
Operational: The transformation of a business’ standard business practices such as workflows or processes to improve operational efficiency and effectiveness.
Strategic: The transformation of a business’ overarching strategy, goals, or objectives. This type of change is intended to effect the direction of a business to unlock new opportunities.
Structural: The transformation of a business’ operational structure; often through the creation, removal, or alteration, of business functions or practices.
The definitions for each have been crafted so they enable the easy formulation of definitions for the subsequent combinations, and make the objective of the change clear.
These definitions can be applied to both “Change Journeys” or “Change Strategies”. This is especially useful in the case of multiple “Change Strategies” in a “Change Journey” where we can highlight the type of change each “Change Strategy” is looking to enact.
For example we can define a “Change Strategy” where a business is wanting to capitalise on the opportunities provided by Large Language Models inside a wider “Change Journey” as follows:
Change Goal:
Make the business the best in the industry for advanced AI & Technology solutions.
Change Journey:
Improve the business’ technological credentials, abilities, and utilisation.
Change Type: Major Evolutionary Operational Change
This change journey will impact all aspects of the business as we look to evolve the business’ way of operating to ensure that we are able to show to clients that we are at the cutting edge of the industry. This will result in every utilised process being improved with relevant technological solutions as the business develops.
Change Strategy
Build an LLM development function in the business
Change Type: Minor Revolutionary Structural Change
This change strategy reframes the data team as the AI & Data team, changing their scope to not only provide data services to the business; but also be the business’ pioneers in the AI space which will require a minor restructuring of the team.
Change Actions
Rename the data team to Data & AI Team
Head of Data => Head of AI & Data
Hire 5 LLM focused engineers/scientists
As a general rule of thumb: the more severe, or the greater the impact of, the type of change, it will take longer and be more difficult to accomplish.
Starting a “Change Journey”
So with all that how do you start a “Change Journey”. Well first we need to address an uncomfortable fact.
No matter the type of change or its typical impact, at key points throughout any “Change Journey” (such as the start, or responding to crisis) you may have to make some uncomfortable decisions regarding who you want to come, or remain with you, on this “Change Journey”.
This is best explained by a story my father told me about a “Change Journey” he was a “Change Agent” for and it has stuck in my head ever since he first told it to me. The “Change Leader” said to the business:
As a business we are going on a journey together, we are doing this because we need to do so in order to remain at the forefront of our industry.
Some of you may not want to come on this journey; we will help you where we can to make it as easy and as painless as possible for you to leave.
Some of you we may not want to come on this journey; again we will help you where possible to make it as easy and as painless as possible for you as you leave the business.
For those we want to come on this journey, and want to come with us, we are excited for you to help us reach our goals, and face the challenges along the way, working together as a team.
This won’t be an easy journey but we believe the rewards will be worth the effort.
In just 5 sentences the “Change Leader” told them they were going on a journey; told them why they were going on this journey; highlighted there may be personnel changes, both voluntary and involuntary; and made it clear for those who come on the journey they were expected to contribute and help the journey reach its goals.
Not every “Change Journey” will require personnel changes from the offset, but some will. This is an unfortunate side of “Change Management” and probably why people are afraid when they hear the term.
However, these situations are best handled openly and honestly to minimise the negative impacts on morale.
If you don’t have to make any of these decisions, how you start a “Change Journey” is to:
Look at your “Change Strategy”
Pick a viable “Change Action”
Brief the people involved in the “Change Action”
Start the “Change Action”
Whilst the 6Ps are true - Proper Preparation and Planning Prevents Poor Performance - we can sometimes get stuck in an endless planning loop. Yes, it is important to plan and strategise, but there comes a point where the only way in which you can refine your plan further is to start delivering it.
Will it go to plan? Almost certainly not. However, through the combination of “Change Management”, your project delivery skills, your team management skills, and the support of the business groups around you; you are prepared to handle the situations the business may encounter during this “Change Journey”.
That was a lot of information…
That was a long post, however one of the frustrations I found when I was learning change management - no more formatting, it’s the end of the post - was that I couldn’t find a singular post that covered the main points. The upside though is that now we have a post we can refer back to everytime we mention change-related topics!
If you made it all this way and you haven’t already you really should subscribe to “The Technician’s MBA” as that was a marathon post. Consider this your “I made it through the change management post” medal 🥇.
Grand. Thanks for your time.