Changing change management to be human-centred.

Preparing for the future is difficult when the goal posts keep moving. Preparing for and coping with a change used to be a ‘big deal’ in business and community settings. Now, change is ubiquitous – the ‘new normal’. And the pace of change is accelerating with no signs of a slowdown.

There is now compelling evidence that the time-honoured business discipline of Organisational Change Management may be out of time...  

Is it time to ‘change’ change management?

Organisational change management now has to pivot from a project management focus  ‘coping strategy’ around a specific event, to a broader, more holistic recalibration of organisations mechanisms for continuous transformation and change resilience. The benchmark for successful organisations won’t be simply ‘managing’ change. Instead, success will be defined by an organisation’s proactive ability and speed to adapt and transform navigating with changes, and to be able to leverage strategic benefits as a result.

Traditional methods of change management (based on variations of the Punctuated Equilibrium model developed in the 1950’s) now struggle to reconcile the ambiguity in environments in which multiple organisational change stressors are at play. (How many times have you witnessed a change initiative within an organisation that is redundant by the time it is delivered?)

Symplicit has a different perspective on organisational change.  And – not surprisingly - it is founded on a principle of Human-Centred Design.

Symplicit’s approach is to conduct organisational change from a user’s perspective. In an organisational change scenario users could be staff or stakeholders, senior management or shareholders, customers or community.  The essence of Symplicit’s difference is to ask ‘why?’.

Prosecuting a process for organisational change is about creating an alignment of the willing. In short, ensuring the answer to ‘why?’ creates value and good sense to its people (and make dollars for the bottom line). Plans, processes and procedures may be the traditional artefacts of organisational change but the success of contemporary organisational change is measured by the acceptance and engagement (the UX) of the people!

Rather than relying on out-of-the box frameworks and methodologies Symplicit interrogates change requirements based on a foundation of human-centred design: adopting interdisciplinary and holistic approaches to knowledge, research, and organisations’ staff, customers, and communities.

Turbulent change should no longer be viewed simply as a risk for organisations. A human-centred design approach to change provides organisations with a positive pathway to embrace change as an opportunity!

An organisation that has developed an agility and cultural competency around change will enjoy a significant competitive advantage now and into the future.