For many organizations, business agility marks a change. Employees may have heard of agile concepts from their development team, but likely perceive it as techie and complex, or at the very least it’s new. Following are some tips from the pros to help manage change.
Our friends at Ernstmann Consulting, who specialize in organizational development, recently released a short video (3 minutes 30 seconds) on understanding change and how to effectively address it within your organization. They pull from industry experts like John Kotter, William Bridges, and Kubler-Ross, in addition to sprinkling in their own experience, to provide some excellent insights into change management.
Have a view of the video, and then read my comments below on how those change management concepts relate to business agility.
Based on Kubler-Ross model and changing to an agile business:
Denial Phase – Despite the many benefits of an agile business, don’t underestimate the impact of change. You may have to re-engage the rational part of your employee’s brain as the change is introduced. To minimize or eliminate an initial, emotional response of threat or fear, provide information, communication, and honesty. Engage the teams with a launch meeting to help them understand the benefits, and encourage questions to provide clarity and participation in the process.
Resistance Phase - Good communication continues throughout implementation to address phases like “resistance.” Any feelings of anger, loss, depression, or fatigue can be mitigated through open discussion, support, and listening.
Get them to the Decision Point, where they see opportunities and options.
Moving up the curve - As employees start to experience the Exploration and Commitment phases it is recommended to help them through “clear direction” in moving forward, such as clarity on roles and responsibilities, in addition to actions. Clarity is one of the core tenants of Coras’ business agility solution, and a great tool to help you in both managing change and achieving success.
Tools like Coras, or other software solutions, are far more powerful when combined with best practices such as the change management approaches demonstrated in this video. If it’s not clear when using Coras, feel free to reach out and ask how you can use it to:
- Provide clear direction
- Clarity on roles and responsibilities
- Effectively take and manage actions
- Encourage innovative ideas and approaches
- Provide input and recommendations
The above are all points highlighted in the video. Visit Ernstmann Consulting’s blog for more insights related to change management.