You see, organizational change is not only becoming more common and frequent, but the nature of the change itself is becoming more complex. Instead of dealing with incremental shifts in the status quo, we are encountering transformative changes that impact every facet of the organization on an ongoing basis. This means that enterprise change management cannot be approached reactively but rather needs to be embedded in the foundation of the organization. 

By creating a company culture that encompasses enterprise change management, your organization will have a built-in framework for tackling change efficiently and mitigating the potential risks associated with poorly implemented changes. This allows you to embrace agility and be prepared for any radical change that comes your way.

What is a Change-Ready Culture?

How receptive would you say your organisation is to change? Is it met with enthusiasm or a lot of push-back? This will generally tell you whether your organisation has a change-ready culture. It is characterized by the following:

• A shared vision for change. Employees understand the need for change and are committed to the organisation’s vision for the future. 
• Open communication. Employees feel comfortable communicating their ideas and concerns about change. Leaders are transparent about the change process and keep employees informed of progress. 
• Employee empowerment. Employees feel empowered to take ownership of change and make decisions that support the change process. 
• Collaboration. Employees work together to implement change. There is a strong sense of teamwork and collaboration across the organisation. 
• Continuous learning. Employees are encouraged to learn new skills and knowledge to support change. 

The Role of Leadership in Creating a Change-Ready Culture

As a leader in your organisation, you play a critical role in creating a change-ready culture. You ultimately set the vision for change, communicate the vision to employees, and provide the support and resources employees need to make the change happen. 

Culture always comes from the top down so it is up to you to model the kind of behaviour and attitude towards change you’d like to see by demonstrating your enthusiasm and commitment to being open to embracing new ways of doing things. Employees will look to you to understand the change and for guidance so it’s imperative you commit fully to integrating change management into your organisation before you expect employees to do the same. 

Here are some of the key things you can do to create a change-ready culture:

1. Assess Your Current Reality

Before you can take steps to build a change-ready culture, you need to assess the current sentiment around change within your organisation. You could do this through surveys, focus groups or one-on-one interviews with employees (depending on the size of your organisation) to establish a baseline you can use as a yardstick to measure your progress going forward. 

2. Develop an Enterprise Change Management Strategy 

Once you know where things stand, it’s time to put an Enterprise Change Management strategy in place where you have clearly defined KPI’s, your vision and an action plan. The PROSCI change management approach has been designed to help you achieve this with its 3-step approach – preparing for change, managing change and reinforcing change. The plan should detail everything from standardized processes to defining roles and responsibilities, timelines and the required tools to equip employees with what they need to adopt change. 

3. Use the ADKAR Model to Create a Shared Vision for Change

Research has shown time and again that organisational change will not happen unless its people change along with it. That’s where the ADKAR model comes in to help change managers and leaders affect change within the individual to successfully deploy organisational change. 

ADKAR, an acronym for Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement, provides a goal-oriented framework for leadership to guide individuals through the change process.

• Building Awareness involves communicating the reasons behind the change and its potential impact. 
• Cultivating Desire focuses on creating a sense of urgency and willingness to embrace the change. 
• Providing Knowledge equips employees with the understanding of how the change will affect their roles and responsibilities. 
• Developing Ability enables employees to implement the change through training and support. 
• Reinforcement ensures the change sticks by offering ongoing support and celebrating successes. 

Taking a holistic approach to ensuring collective involvement and acceptance of change helps leaders and practitioners build a shared understanding and commitment to the change vision.

4. Allow Employees to Take Ownership 

Part of cultivating desire for change is allowing employees to take ownership of the transition by being actively involved in the planning and implementation of change. Asking for input through focus groups and surveys can keep your employees committed to change initiatives. 

5. Monitor and Adjust 

Accept that sometimes things don’t go to plan and if your change initiatives are not as successful as you’d hoped, regroup and adjust accordingly. Don’t only rely on your KPI’s for this – take employee feedback on board and allow them to once again be a part of shaping the organisation’s future. Because without them, there isn’t one. 

The Benefits of a Change-Ready Culture

1. Competitive advantage 

As an organisation who is highly flexible and ready for change, you are well positioned to grab new opportunities. It empowers your workforce to be more productive and innovative, which drives growth. This can have a positive impact on the sustainability and longevity of your business as well as your bottom line – all which positively impact the continued success of your employees. 

In addition to this, PROSCI has found that organisations with change-ready cultures succeed in their initiatives 93% of the time, generally on schedule and under budget. (insert graph infographic) 

2. Avoid Change Saturation 

Organisations who are undergoing constant change with no enterprise change management plan in place tend to experience change saturation. This means disorganized change is repetitively happening to the same individuals, causing constant disruption and chaos. Eventually the individuals become fatigued by the change where you’ll begin to see resistance, low morale and poor productivity. This level of exhaustion toward change – on both a personal and professional level – makes it impossible to bring about change. 

3. Improve Change Management Maturity 

A change-ready culture isn’t just about preparing individuals for change but also elevating your organisation’s overall change management maturity. When your people embrace change and willingly adopt new processes and tools, you’ll enjoy higher success rates for change initiatives. This, in turn, strengthens your change management capabilities, allowing your organisation to move more effectively along the maturity curve. 

The change management maturity curve illustrates your organisation’s evolution in managing change. It typically begins with an ad-hoc approach, where change was often reactive and inconsistent, to an optimized level, where change management is ingrained in the organisational DNA and viewed as a strategic capability. As organisations progress along this curve, they demonstrate increased proficiency in areas such as leadership alignment, project management integration and measurement of change effectiveness. 

Embrace Ongoing Change Effectively

If the new normal is ongoing change, as a change management agent within your organisation, you need to equip yourself with the tools and knowledge necessary to build agile change management strategies. If you are looking to build a change-ready culture in your organisation, andChange can help. We offer a variety of change management programs to help senior leaders and change practitioners. Explore our upcoming courses to learn more about how we can help you build a change-ready culture.