Change Management

Implementation of strategy is as important as development of a coherent strategy. Based on the strategy formulated, organizations may be required to create significant changes to operations, structure and skill sets. Since these changes are necessary for the strategy to succeed, change management becomes an essential aspect of strategy implementation. For the team involved in strategy development, certain changes might seem obvious and necessary. Yet convincing the employees to accept those changes ends up becoming the biggest hurdle for the strategic planning team.

A strategy might look brilliant on paper, but if not implemented suitably could end up causing more damage than before. The organization’s employees are the drivers for its strategy and the ones to realize the changes outlined in the strategy. Thus, understanding the factors determining the likelihood of employees accepting change will better prepare the strategy and operations teams to tackle hurdles during implementation. One of the biggest factors that influence employees are the leaders of the organization. If these leaders have the ability to gain trust and convince the employees about the necessity of changes, employees will be more receptive to the new strategy. Another factor that plays in is the fear of unknown. Employees could be overwhelmed by changes or at times get defensive about moving away from the status quo. Their behaviors and attitudes towards a new strategy can result in anger and resentment all of which could be detrimental to the progress of the organization.

Strategic planners and operations managers often consider transformation to be a minor detail in the strategic implementation process. The ‘people factor’ is always swept under the rug either because it is considered insignificant or because it cannot be measured. However, according John P. Kotter, this is where most organizations fail. In his article, “Leading Change”, he talks about looking at implementing change as a process rather than an event.^[1] Kotter’s 8 steps of leading change although are written for all transformation effort in general, can be perfectly applied to strategy implementation. The 8 stages provide a roadmap for change for organizations starting with establishing an urgency of the situation all the way to institutionalizing the new approaches. The steps also include creating, communicating and empowering others to act on the vision. This can be made possible only if the organization has developed a clear strategy that can be understood easily by all layers within the organization. Although these 8 steps of change management come into picture after strategy has been formulated, they in a way inform the process of strategy creation too.

Change management can make or break strategy implementation and should not be taken lightly. Organizations should work towards formulating a process for transformation and developing metrics to measure the success of these transformations. If the organizations do not consciously create an environment for acceptance of change, creation of new strategies will be a futile effort.

References:

1] Kotter, John P. "Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail." Harvard Business Review, January 2007.