What Are Change Management Programs?

Change Management programs are plans that enable companies to implement new processes, systems, and strategies to achieve superior business performance. These programs involve devising change initiatives, generating organizational buy-in, executing the initiatives as seamlessly as possible, and generating a repeatable model for continued success in future change efforts. A Change Management program allows leaders to help people succeed, showing where and when trouble is likely to occur and laying out a strategy for mitigating risks and monitoring progress.

How Are Change Management Programs Implemented?

Change Management programs require managers to:

• Focus on results and maintain a goal-oriented mindset by establishing clear, nonnegotiable goals and designing incentives to guarantee that they are met
• Overcome barriers to change by identifying employees who are most affected and working to predict, measure, and manage the risk of change
• Repeatedly communicate simple, powerful messages to employees, altering communication frequency and methods to manage how a shaken workforce perceives and reacts to information
• Secure sponsorship from the C-suite to the front line, allowing sponsorship to reach all levels of the organization to facilitate ample dialogue about the changes
• Reorganize around decision making by developing a system for identifying, making, and executing the most important decisions in a timely manner
• Continuously monitor progress, following each change initiative’s advancement to make certain it is following its intended path

Related Topics

• Cultural Transformation

• Organizational Change

• Process Redesign

 

What Are Common Uses of Change Management Programs?

Companies use a Change Management program to:

• Implement major strategic initiatives to adapt to changes in markets, customer preferences, technologies, or the competition’s strategic plans
• Align and focus an organization when undergoing a major turnaround
• Carry out new process initiatives

• Selected references (click to expand)

  Centola, Damon. Change: How to Make Big Things Happen. Little, Brown Spark, 2021

  Conner, Daryl R. Managing at the Speed of Change: How Resilient Managers Succeed and Prosper Where Others Fail. Random House, 2006.

  Heath, Chip, and Dan Heath. Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. Crown Business, 2010.

  HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Change Management. Harvard Business Review Press, 2011.

  Kotter, John. Leading Change. Harvard Business Review Press, 2012.

  Kotter, John, and Dan S. Cohen. The Heart of Change: Real Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations. Harvard Business Review Press, 2012.

  Kotter, John, and Holger Rathgeber. Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions. Penguin Random House, 2016.

  Maxwell, John C. Leadershift: The 11 Essential Changes Every Leader Must Embrace. Harper Collins Leadership, 2019.

  Michels, David and Kevin Murphy. “How Good Is Your Company at Change?” Harvard Business Review, July–August 2021.

  Patterson, Kerry, Joseph Grenny, and David Maxfield. Influencer: The Power to Change Anything. McGraw-Hill, 2007.

  Rigby, Darrell, Steve Berez, and Sarah Elk. Doing Agile Right: Transformation Without Chaos, Harvard Business Review Press, 2020.

Read the Brief

Management Tools & Trends 2023

On the 30th anniversary of our survey, managers seem surprisingly upbeat.