I have just returned from Johannesburg where I had the privilege and
pleasure of attending and addressing the Association of Change Management
Professionals (ACMP) Africa region conference. My thanks to Anna-lise, Marion
and all the rest of the committee for all their hard work in putting on yet
another successful conference, as well as their kindness, warmth and
hospitality.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend all the sessions, but I certainly
heard a number of worthwhile speakers and a lot of interesting ideas and I am
grateful for the lessons learned. However, I remain concerned that there is
still an over-arching theme that change is something that you do to
people rather than with people.
Perhaps it is just me and I am being hyper-sensitive to something that is
very dear to me, but so much of the discussion revolved around what you do to
manage people more effectively to instigate and implement change. Of course this is entirely understandable when,
by definition, change management deals with the people side of change. Yet
there is a danger in this too because, in reality, all management is about overseeing
change effectively – particularly in this day and age when change is ubiquitous.
It is, of course, this all-pervasiveness of change that has made “change
management” such an important term in the business lexicon. And there is
nothing wrong with that. In fact it is essential. The issue is that its very
nature means that you as a business leader have to rely more on people for your
success. And that is something you cannot do if you persist with the old
attitudes towards managing and continue to see people as a resource that will do
what you tell them simply because you told them.
Unsurprisingly change is an integral part of change. And so you have to
recognise that, when dealing with change, you also need to change the way you
manage. After all, organisational change is nothing more than the behavioural
change of a collective of individuals. Thus
you need to recognise that organisational change takes place one person at a
time! Consequently you can only effect it when individuals embrace the need to change
themselves and encourage their colleagues to do the same. When you work with
them to do this you will be far more likely to succeed than if you persist with
traditional “command and control” approaches and methods that try to impose
change on people. Commanding may compel compliance, but it will not
elicit employee engagement and effective change demands engagement.
So to deliver successful change in your organisation you need a more
personal approach and to be very alert to what preposition you associate with,
and attach to, it.