Benefits Of A Change Management Strategy
A McKinsey & Company study of 40 organizations initiating company-wide changes found that 58% failed to meet their intended targets. The changes were anticipated to have significant economic impact. Unsurprisingly, “…companies with the lowest returns also had poor change management capabilities…”
The remaining 42% either hit their expected financial returns or exceeded them, “in some instances by as much as 200 to 300 percent.” These companies exhibited strong change management capabilities.
The study is just one statistical example of many showing the benefits companies can reap by putting some thought to how they implement new strategies in their business. This concept is significantly different, but equally important, to knowing what changes to pursue and it’s often overlooked in the planning processes.
Relevance To Your Business
The global pandemic we’ve all experienced the last 18 months has accelerated the need for businesses to look at how they adapt to change. No business, whether on Main Street or Wall Street has been immune to the need to modify operations.
The adoption of new digital tools for communication, online ordering (ecommerce), and remote work has introduced new ways of doing business for companies. Savvy leaders have developed new product and service offerings that now need to be managed. Evolving health protocols challenge business operations regularly. Complicating matters more, these changes are happening at breakneck speed. To say the rapid onset of these evolutionary shifts has made managing people and developing efficient processes challenging is an understatement for sure!
Now, perhaps more than ever, companies need to realize there is method behind the healthy evolution of how they do business. Operational agility becomes more cost effective and more culturally ingrained when done intentionally and thoughtfully – when there’s strategy involved. As we now start to transition out of survival mode and search for stability, focusing on how your business manages change becomes vital. It is vital to achieving and maintaining stability, through whatever changes lie ahead.
Analogies to Darwinism and theories of evolution seem highly applicable to the business world right now. Organizations that can’t adapt, struggle to survive. Those that can adapt, keep on going. Many even thrive. The question is, how will your business fair?
Signs You Need A Strategy to Manage Change
As the McKinsey & Company study shows, your likelihood of success correlates with the focus placed on implementing change management strategies.
So, what signs indicate your business’ performance is being limited? What human factors reduce the agility your business has to adapt when needed? Most importantly, what opportunities exist for you to transform how your business operates to ensure it thrives?
Below are a few scenarios to be leery of. If any are present in your business, take them as a strong indicator your company needs to put some thought behind how you implement new initiatives.
| SIGNS | IMPACT |
|---|---|
| Teams working in silos | Teams focus only on their own portion of a project and fail to understand how their work and use of resources impacts other teams and progress towards the greater goal. This mentality can result in duplicate efforts across teams, costly rework, poor quality results, and customer dissatisfaction. |
| Low individual engagement and/or accountability among employees | Employees don’t understand their roles and how their work contributes to the broader mission of the organization. Lack of clear task and goal ownership can lead to stalled progress and incomplete work towards goals. Combined, these can create a highly demotivating work culture. |
| Lack of clear goals/expectations | Individuals and teams cannot be held accountable if goals are not clearly articulated AND understood by all involved. Making progress towards goals becomes more difficult if people interpret them differently. |
| Employees seem resistant to change | Low buy-in results from failure to understand the need for change and failure to see that change is possible. Unless convinced otherwise, a mentality of compliance is the best leaders can expect from employees. Non-compliance is the worst-case response. |
| Rapid revenue growth has outpaced employee growth and process development | Rapid revenue growth, while good, can often leave business owners scrambling to keep up with demand. New teams or departments may be formed to support business operations and client needs. People are hired to fill these new roles. Without a strong foundation for developing people and modifying or developing new processes for growth, a chaotic environment prevails. Neither your business nor your customers will be served well by this. |
Comments are closed