subject: What Is The True Meaning Of Change Management [print this page] What Is The True Meaning Of Change Management
One of the major change leadership priorities is recognizing and addressing the inner psychological and emotional adjustments that people move through in response to external organizational change events. The important distinction between organizational change and what is called "transition" that people need to move through in order to successfully adapt to the new circumstances arising from that change.
When workplace change happens, conflict happens. People have different hopes, fears, perspectives, and ideas about how they might survive, and even thrive. They are not just pretending these differences in order to be controversial. Everyone wants the best, according to their own definitions. People are in disagreement, teams fragment, discord erupts or goes underground. It can be tempting to ignore, or dictate solutions.
The biggest step is one that can only be taken by the CEO and senior management of the organization, and that is to relinquish (or at least relax) "command and control". Not totally of course, as there is always a need for firm direction and senior management edicts, but sufficiently to empower the change leaders to identify and work in collaboration with the informal networks.
As soon as you know that change is coming, begin preparing the people. One of the best ways to overcome resistance to change is to inform people about the change effort in advance. Frequent, regular and transparent communication about the change builds trust, gives you the opportunity to explain what you want from your staff, and allows them to openly communicate their concerns, issues, fears or perceived challenges related to the change.
What's difference between Change Management and Transition Management? Change is the event and transition is the process. Change Management concerns itself with the physical aspects of change, what needs to be done, when and by whom. Transition Management, on the other hand, is about people and how they are affected by the change. Transitions must be managed carefully to enable people to let go and reorient themselves so that the change can work.
Every now and then there are times in business when corporate managers and executives need a little shake up and that means to shed the dead weight that is not up to the performance standards that are required to run the company efficiently. When this happens it is of the utmost important to get rid of those executives or corporate managers which is the true meaning of change management.
