Key to Change Management

"When you through changing … you’re through”

Wise words, and applicable to both people and organisations. Change is continuous and the challenge of modern life isn’t change itself but the pace of change. Managing change has always been a key activity for any organisation aiming to grow and prosper, yet it is only in the last couple of decades that the term ‘change management’ has come into general use and become the focus of management and forward thinking leaders.

Perhaps this is the result of the growing awareness of the fact that organisational change is dependent on people and the dawning realisation that the statement, “People who wait for changes to occur on the outside before they commit to making changes on the inside will never make any changes at all,” is just as applicable to organisational change as it is to personal change. In other words, to drive effective organisational change, management has to make the people want to change.

Follow this logic through to its ultimate conclusion and it is self-evident that the fortunes of the organisation and the people working in it are inextricably linked. Yet somehow this natural alliance has been eroded, as statistics of employee engagement hovering around 20% or less clearly indicate. No organisation can possibly be effective with such levels of disengagement.

It is therefore equally clear that organisations looking to compete in the 21st Century have to regenerate this natural strategic alignment between organisational objectives and personal ones. In order to both ensure proper change management and secure the people they need to win the ‘War of Talent’, business is going to have to change the way it manages people. Awareness and recognition of this fact is the driving force behind the whole movement for improved Human Capital Management.   

What has yet to be recognised, however, is the fact that management, people management and change management are simply interchangeable terms for the same thing. The longer management takes to recognise this fact, the deeper the trough of economic inefficiency is likely to be and the harder the journey will be. This is the ultimate distillation of Gary Hamel’s call for greater ‘management innovation’ and the Zealise proposition meets the challenge in spades. It provides the mechanism to:
• Build the required Strategic Alignment;
• Optimise People Management; and
• Effectively measure People Management.
But most of all it provides the catalyst for effective change management.