The art of Guidance in Change Management

Ever thought about how easily hotel guests adopted their behaviour in re-using towels in hotels? How a simple ‘re-use towel’ card made a worldwide change, with an enormous impact on use of water? 

Not all changes are adopted that easily. 

Take CRM or ERP implementation projects. They do not always get the necessary and timely adoption within an organisation. 

One of the main reasons is that traditional project management still primarily focusses on the technical side of change. But what about the people side of change? How to help people to embrace new ways of working? 

It’s much more than communication. Change Management is a structured process and a set of plans for leading the people side of change.   

The approach consists in three stages: preparing for change, managing the change and sustaining the outcome.  

Five key elements are important: 

• Awareness of the need for change - I understand why… 

• Desire to support and participate the change – I have decided to… 

• Knowledge on how to change – I know how to… Ability to implement desired skills and behaviour – I am able to … 

• Reinforcement to sustain the change – I will continue to…. 

It all starts by clearly understanding the why – getting a clear and common view on the North Star, the GOAL (as we call it at Mentor and Men) and being able to bring the story at every level in the organisation why the Change is needed. This is where the primary sponsor has a key contribution.

But sponsorship alone is not enough. There are five influential channels, for which a clear plan is developed: sponsorship, communications, coaching, training and resistance management.  Too often Change Management is limited to communication and training, but that’s not enough for creating awareness & desire. 

It is the role of the Change Manager or Practitioner to include these channels and guide the primary sponsor, the leadership team, managers & supervisors, the project team, the trainers and HR in practising and deploying change management techniques to get people on board of the change train.  

Again, think about the small ‘re-use towel’ card in hotel rooms, with a text such as – and introduced in the nineties: 

“Each day we use thousands of litres of water and tons of detergents in our hotel to wash guest towels that have been used once.  Decide for yourself.  A towel on the rack means ‘I will use it again’.  A towel on the floor means ‘Please exchange’ ”   

This card contains all the elements discussed above.  The Change has been adopted by all hotel guests by now. 

Think about it, what would have been the reaction of hotel guests to a card that reads “Please reuse your towel. It saves us money”. 

The same applies to CRM & ERP implementations. Too many sponsors still consider them as purely quantifiable IT projects, with dissatisfaction and suboptimal results after go-live. 

Including the people side of change is proven to increase project success rate substantially.  

Contact Mentor and Men to help your organisation in the art of Change Management.  

Best Regards, Luc
Partner Mentor and Men