Mergers and Acquisitions, new market tends, regulatory requirements, poor business performance, or changing a major system may trigger a need for fundamental change to how things are done within an organization. This change becomes necessary for your business to thrive or survive.

Change initiatives are often not successful in achieving the vision of the change because sufficient momentum was not created upfront or the implementation of the initiative did not follow a sequence that provided a better chance at success. Change momentum involves both analytical and emotional factors and the intuition required to connect with the organization at the emotional level. Successful change initiatives involve the implementation of eight steps, if possible, in specific sequence.

Building momentum starts with leadership identifying and solving  the little urgent issues that make work at the various levels of the organization difficult and frustrating to accomplish. Once momentum and some level of trust is created, the environment is set to raise the urgency for the need to change at the strategic level. Following the three major steps below will provide a good chance at success.

Initial Analysis and Communication (“Unfreezing of Attitudes”)

1. The strategic change process starts with establishing and communicating why the change is needed, the objectives of the change, and why the old way of doing things is no longer adequate. This step assumes that by this time enough trust and urgency around the need for change had been established.
2. What specific things are going to change and what would stay the same?
3. What the impact of each of these things on success and how would the employees work contribute to achieving this success.

Implementation (Changing)

1. Develop implementation plan
2. Get buy-in through communication that enforces the emotional connection
3. Deploy the change agents you identified during the building momentum step.
4. Implement the plan.

 
 
Follow Through (Making the change stick or “Refreezing”)

1. Maintain a high level of urgency until the vision of change is achieved.
2. Ensure that processes and programs are institutionalized (reward programs, performance management programs, new employee selection criteria, teamwork, collaboration, etc)
3. Serve as role model on how things are done going forward.

Once again it is essential for success to start the change process by building trust and raising the level of urgency. Trust, urgency, and the emotional connection will alleviate, and in some cases, eliminate many of the reasons why change is resisted. Without that, change will become an exercise in pushing a boulder up a tall mountain.