The "Harder" Side of Change

Managing the people side of a change is sometimes referred to as the "soft" side, while the technical aspects is the "hard" side. But despite this terminology, managing the people along with their hopes, fears, beliefs and misconceptions is actually the most difficult; it is often neglected, and frequently is the source of the failure of a project.

The financial success of change is most dependent on how individuals embrace the change, and adopt and utilize it in their day-to-day work. It's both a learned process and a new competency. It's about changing individual employee behaviors, and modifying the holistic tool set used to get the job done.

Organizational change happens one person at a time, but it is the cumulative effect of these individual efforts that results in successful organizational change. Poorly managed change will result in productivity declines, lowered employee morale, missed deadlines and budget overruns. In many cases, projects are abandoned as failures when progress is slow and milestones are missed.

The likelihood of success increases when effective change management strategies are utilized. Benchmarking studies conducted in 2007 and 2009 showed that 95% of participants with effective change management programs met or exceeded objectives compared to 16% of participants with poor change management strategies. A 2002 McKinsey Quarterly article found that projects with excellent change management approaches delivered 143% of their expected ROI, while those with poor change management methods delivered only 35% of expected ROI.

Regardless of the nature of the change, focusing on the people involved, especially front-line management and line employees increases the likelihood of being successful, and of staying both on schedule and under budget.

Individuals need the following six things in order to succeed at change:

• An awareness of a need for change
• The desire to participate in and support the change
• The knowledge of how to go about accomplishing the change
• The ability to implement the required skills
• Continuing reinforcement from management to sustain the change
• An organizational cultural shift that supports the change

Lacking any of these, employees will not be able to make and sustain the needed changes.

The people side of change management is not the soft side of change, it is the "harder" side. Investing time and energy to manage the people side of an organizational effort will pay off in terms of success of the effort, as well as the avoidance of the many costs that plague badly managed change. Getting people on board and participating is the most important aspect of change management.

Adapted from the Change Management Learning Center, The "harder" side of change

The What, Why and How of change management: http://bit.ly/caqtx1