The Change Journey Blog Series
This series is intended to share Evolve’s view on Change, based on hundreds of major change programs with well-known organizations. Far from being a “how-to” guide on change, it is meant to share our experience of what the journey of transformational change looks and feels like. While everyone's journey is different, there are many common experiences that people going through a change journey tend to run into along the way.
This first episode sets the scene and talks about the inevitable relentless pursuit of performance that most organizations seek. Our experience shows that when clients build an environment of innovation and learning, their people are empowered to anticipate and solve problems. The organization ends up on a path to performance that they never believed to be possible. This is an ultimate source of competitive advantage in today's markets.
In the previous episode we set the scene for the Journey of Change. We talked about how most change journey's fail and the many factors that contribute to this, such as limiting structures, processes, system, management and leadership practices and personal beliefs. In this episode, we focus on how to get started on the journey by Building Belief in the Possibility of Better Performance.
At this point, we are still getting started and gaining momentum on the change journey. We've learned that reticence or resistance are symptomatic of issues that are important to the organization's values and they should be treated carefully. This week we discuss how to Captivate the Wider Organization and Overcome the Knowing Doing Challenge.
At this stage of the change journey, many of the improvements are beginning to take hold. We have demonstrated quick wins in the form of improving meeting effectiveness and removing of process pain points. We have begun to create an environment where people feel encouraged to try new things. This episode focuses on Breaking the Status Quo in the Organization.
At this point, a new culture is beginning to emerge in the organization - one that is open to failing, learning, problem solving and decision making. New insights and ideas are bubbling through the teams, and they are excited by their progress and results. In this penultimate episode, we focus on Expanding Change and Capability and Moving Beyond Compliance.
In our penultimate episode last week, we discussed Expanding Change and Capability through the organization. We also identified the temptation to declare victory at this point and to ignore the very final challenge that lies in the journey; that of moving beyond compliance to create real understanding and ownership by connecting learnings to performance.