The 10 best Change Management resources
in March 2022

"To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often". This quote by Winston Churchill is a bit misleading because we will never be perfect. But I do believe that we are in a time where we are required to change how we work often. Also, a bit too often for my liking. 
 
We must, therefore, as a community, continue to consider how we evolve this discipline called Change Management. Thanks for all the great articles which you continue to write, and thanks for all the comments and questions you pose to the status quo. Let's continue to evolve. These resources are some of what make our discipline better. Let me hear your comments to them. 

1. CARL RHODES.
How technology is transforming change management from an art to a science.

Carl is Managing Director with EY Global People Advisory Services and is EY Global Change Insights Leader. He argues that change management has historically been regarded as an important but very soft science — at best. I agree with him. But now, innovative, bespoke change programs — rooted in purpose and underpinned by vast quantities of data tapped by new technologies and methods - are enabling leading companies to turn the 'soft' science of change management into something decidedly more precise and fact-based. 
 
Carl sees that change practitioners now have more tools for understanding when, where and how change is taking place — or not taking place. Progress toward the realisation of core strategies and objectives within change initiatives can now be tracked, guided and adjusted where needed based on a 360-degree, data-fuelled analysis, all in near real-time.
 
In the article, he goes on to describe how purpose charts the course; data reveals the experience using examples such as segmentation and additions to survey-based data collection.

2. CHANGE CULTIVATORS.
Mike Sharman - Sometimes, you have to brandalize to revitalise.
 

Sometimes you have to brandalize to revitalise. Mike Sharman has been leading change in the marketing world by helping brands achieve virality for the past 13 years. Hear how the most recent documentaries on #Netflix, #tinderswindler and #myoctopusteacher, presented the perfect opportunity to lead two staple and traditionally successful brand leaders into the edgy, bold new frontiers of parody, virality and increased sales - and all of this amidst the noisy over-saturated advertising and content marketplace

If you are looking for an inspiring (often humorous) change leadership story, mixed with some great tips, tricks and insight, then catch our latest podcast release with the passionate and entertaining CEO and co-founder of #Retroviral, Mike Sharman - change cultivator extraordinaire.

3. TIM CREASEY.
Applying the ADKAR model when change management is new

If you're just beginning to implement change management on a project, it's important to remember that for many people participating, change management is a foreign concept. The effective application of change management principles and tools is itself a change for them. In this article, Tim Creasey, the Chief Innovation Officer at Prosci, explains how the ADKAR Model can help.

Maybe you're working with a newly promoted senior leader who has participated in changes but never fulfilled the role of a sponsor. Perhaps the functional managers brought onto the change management team to share insights and expertise from their particular areas have no understanding of change management concepts or tools. For them, they are undergoing a change themselves—the change of applying effective change management.

Luckily, we can use the ADKAR Model to examine the key steps, messages and information required to get change management team members successfully through the personal change. ADKAR can be used like this:

1. Awareness of the need to apply effective change management
2. Desire to participate in and support effective change management application
3. Knowledge about how to apply change management
4. Ability to implement new skills and behaviours related to change management
5. Reinforcement to keep change management in place

I am, of course, hugely biased because I think ADKAR can be used for all changes, but in this case, it really does make sense.

4. VALÈNE JOUANY & KRISTINA MARTIC.
Change Management: Definition, Best Practices & Examples

This is a long-read article and a fairly basic one - especially for those of you who are seasoned change practitioners. But I have included the article on this list because it can serve as a great resource for you to share with people around your project, who may not know a lot about change management, but that you would like to become familiar with basic concepts; managers, HR, sponsors etc.  

In the article, the authors, Valène Jouany & Kristina Martic, take you through the following topics:

• Definition of Change Management
• 3 Types of Organizational Change (Developmental, Transitional and Transformational changes)
• Common Examples of When Change Management Is Needed
• Managing Organizational Change During Crisis
• Most Common Change Management Challenges
• 12 Change Management Best Practices
• Change Management Models You Can't Ignore (Kotter, ADKAR, Kurt Lewin)
• The Role of Internal Comms in Change Management
• How to Communicate Organizational Change During Crisis

It's a comprehensive article with impressive depth in this format. Worth sharing.

5. NOBL.
How Teams Experience the Change Journey
 

The core message in this article is that teams have a different experience of change than their leaders—but with a little advanced planning, you can address the most common reactions.

It is a well-known fact that If you want to create actual change, you'll need your team's commitment, not just their compliance. That means you'll need people to carry your message into conversations you won't be a part of and add specific "how-tos" in ways you haven't thought of yet—all for something your team may not have asked for in the first place. Understanding your team's experience of change can help you meet them where they are.

This article lists some of the most common reactions they've seen in teams, and for each of them, it explains how leaders may address them. They are:

• Their existing trust in your leadership and each other will influence your ability to change.
• Their motivations will be different from yours.
• They'll silently be waiting for the other shoe to drop. When you announce things will be changing, your team may start to question what else might be changing that they don't know about.
• They'll wonder how these changes will impact what's expected of them. One of the first things teams ask is, "how will my work be affected?" and "what do I need to do differently?"
• They'll take cues from each other to determine if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
• Their attitudes towards change will change.

6. DR JEN FRAHM.
7 Principles of Agile Change Management

We will talk CM and agile in the years to come. While many agree that Agile is an improved project model in most cases, it is not clear how we 'do' change management well in an agile environment. Dr Jen Frahm is the Co-Founder of the Agile Change Leadership Institute based in Australia.

Jen has written a good article with some core principles behind Agile Change Management. They are:

• Principle of Agile Change 1: Co-create where you can
• Principle of Agile Change 2: Take the blinkers off
• Principle  of Agile Change 3: Resource for success
• Principle of Agile Change 4: Communicate what's known, what's not known and when you expect to know more
• Principle of Agile Change 5: Engagement wins every time
• Principle of Agile Change 6: Purpose matters.
• Principle of Agile Change 7: Change leadership is critical.

The blog posts at the Agile Change Leadership Institute are pretty good, and I will encourage you to check them out.

7. FUTURE INSTITUTE OF AUSTRALIA.
Change Leadership: Leading Change Like A Pro

Future Institute of Australia is a training organisation that helps leaders and organisations improve performance and change behaviour. They believe that Change leadership is essential to any organisational change.

When things are smooth sailing at work, many leaders are able to lead effectively. However, in big periods of change or stress, many of the usual strategies tend to not be enough. It is therefore important for leaders to develop the capability to navigate challenging times.

Firstly, leaders should role-model the behaviours and attitudes that they expect from their staff. In other words, leaders should lead from the front. This article is about the most important things for leaders to consider when navigating change or challenging periods in the workplace.

8. CHRISTOPHER SMITH.
Evolution vs transformation: How does your workplace manage change?

Chris is the Lead Author & Editor of Change Blog. Chris established the Change blog to create a source for news and discussion about some of the issues, challenges, news, and ideas relating to Change Management. What a great idea.

In this article, Chris is discussing evolution vs transformation change. Evolutionary workplace change, as the name suggests, is a gradual process. It is not about overnight change or making radical –or even particularly fast – decisions. It is a more considered process with a series of workplace goals that are met over an extended period of time. But sometimes, there simply is not the luxury of time for evolutionary workplace change. Circumstances, often beyond the control of an organisation, can create the need for transformation in the workplace at a much faster pace. Here, workplace change can feel like a revolution rather than an evolution. The Covid-19 pandemic is an excellent example of how workplaces across the world had to make fast decisions to ensure they survived the upheaval of lockdowns.

Depending upon which change type you are embarking upon; employees may ask different questions and react in different ways. Chris shares examples of different questions and suggest ways for you to respond.

An interesting article indeed.

9. MICHAEL CAMPBELL.
4 Things You Should Know About Change Management

Michael Campbell is the Managing Director of CMC Partnership Global. While being a seasoned change practitioner and an experienced Prosci trainer, Michael has written a great article for those of you who are just starting out or need others to understand more about change management.

In this article, he presents an introduction to change management, including the key things you should know about the Prosci methodology and how you can use it to benefit your organisation. 

1. Change v Change Management. On the surface, change and change management appear interchangeable. However, there is a significant and important difference between the two terms. Change is defined as the process of moving from a current state to a future state, while change management focuses on preparing, supporting and equipping employees who are impacted through the transition between these states.
2. Why is Change Management important? Michael mentions a few things, but the most important for me is that Prosci's research shows that initiatives with excellent change management are six times more likely to meet objectives than those with poor change management.
3. The Prosci ADKAR Model®. For an organisation to successful change, its employees need to change first. But how do you ensure that each impacted employee implements this change? The Prosci ADKAR Model®!
4. The Results of Effective Change Management. With excellent change management, employees: Adopt changes faster, more completely and more proficiently, stay engaged in the organisation during disruptive change and understand why the change is happening.

10. STEPHANIE OVERBY.
10 hard truths of change management

This article, posted on CIO.com, lists ten hard truths of change management. Because, as Stephanie Overby writes, for IT, change is constant — so too is the need to assess, address, and reinforce your organisation's ability to adapt and transform.

1. Change is about people: First, last, always
2. It's not about your vision; it's about their why
3. Change involves loss
4. It's impossible to overcommunicate
5. There is no try. Only do
6. Speed matters
7. Monolithic changes (almost) never work
8. Metrics are mandatory
9. You can change more if you don't care who gets the credit
10. Change (in IT) never ends

The headlines do not give the article credit. It is a good list of important truths which Stephanie unfolds.