Organizational Change Without Chaos: Smart Strategies for Lasting Project Growth

When implementing a shift in business strategy, whether it is the adoption of new technology or large-scale restructuring, the success of an organization depends on organizational change and the effectiveness of its implementation.

Organizational change is not just about introducing new systems and processes; it is more about ensuring that the change management strategies are embraced, executed, and sustained in the organization. But how can you implement organizational change without creating chaos?

A PMP certification can help organizations create effective strategies for implementing processes such as the psychology of change management and navigating resistance.

What is Organizational Change?

When an organization or business experiences a significant transition that affects most or all employees, it is known as organizational change. This change can be far-reaching, impacting the company's culture, technology, infrastructure, or internal processes. Overall, organizational change can alter your team's daily tasks and experiences. Some examples of organizational change are:

What are the different types of organizational change?

Organizational change occurs in mainly three forms: structural change, strategy change, and process change.

1. Structural changes: Any change that affects the total structure of your business or team is known as structural change. If done incorrectly, then it can create confusion, especially when it comes to the allocation of resources and responsibilities.

Example: Imagine your startup has a new HR team allocated to manage the recruits. This means that the individual hiring managers are not responsible for the entire onboarding process. But who is in charge of the entire process? This needs to be mapped out in your change management strategies.

2. Strategy changes: Any change that happens in the company’s strategy plan, vision statement, or business goals is known as strategy change. This type of organizational change can affect the goals of individual team members and how they prioritize work.

Example: As the organization grows, your focus will shift from creating new products or services to refining the ones present. This means that your business objectives will now change from increasing brand awareness to boosting customer loyalty.

3. Process changes: These are changes that affect how employees function rather than the organization as a whole. This includes changes in the implementation of new workflows or even slight changes in the existing process. Process changes impact the day-to-day workings of the team.

Example: Your company creates a new legal review for any external communication. This directly impacts your marketing team as they now need to add the legal review into the workflow.

What are some pitfalls of organizational change and how can you avoid them?

Organizational change is like someone diving into the deep end of the pool. Once the initial impact happens, the waves expand outwards and disrupt the entire pool. Similarly, a single change in management strategies can cause chaos that can affect everything from day-to-day workings to the overall profits. But with a little bit of planning you can navigate the change in your organization.

1. Decline in company culture and morale:

Human nature often resists change, especially when the change can affect your future in the company. This means that without the right communication, major transitions can cause a decline in company culture and morale. This type of decline is the hardest to point out as motivation cannot be measured.

For example, if you implement a new HR management process, then you might encounter employee resistance. Your employees might feel that the present system works fine, and learning yet another tool is time-consuming and mentally draining.

But, it is unrealistic to avoid change - especially when the entire process can help improve your team management skills and make collaboration smoother. Organizational change, when not done right with the right processes, can degrade the company morale and affect company culture. You can improve the culture during the change by:

1. Using a change management process: Implementing a change management process can help your team to transition into the new, and train them in the way forward.

2. Establishing shared goals: The creation and communication of clear goals will help the team understand why this organizational change is important. These goals can encourage intrinsic motivation and excite your team. For example, you can implement SMART goals when you shift to the new HR tool.

3. Practicing emotional intelligence: Change is hard, and accepting the change is even harder. However, it is important to understand that different people react to change differently. By cultivating emotional intelligence skills, you can recognize other people’s emotions better and thereby communicate with empathy, build strong bonds, and effectively help manage conflicts.

4. Ask employees for feedback: Feedback can help you in two ways -

(a) Help you understand your team’s overall concerns and improve team communication
(b) Demonstrate that you value every team member's advice, especially when taking steps to address the team’s problems.

2. Decision-making process:

Big changes bring even bigger uncertainties. With the addition of clear communication, organizational change makes it harder to understand who is responsible for what tasks.

Let’s take the example of this scenario:

Imagine your organization created a new User Research Team with three new researchers. You are a part of the product development team, and initially, you could only test products. Now you can not only test but also research new improvements. However, these new resources are inexperienced.

So, do you still conduct testing, or is that the User Research Team’s responsibility? Who decides in the product creation process? These questions can make the entire decision-making process difficult, but the following change management strategies can help solve these problems:

1. Creating an RACI Chart: An RACI chart will help outline who is responsible, and informed for each deliverable for a project. By creating an RACI chart you highlight the roles and responsibilities to remove any added confusion.

2. Connecting goals to work: By creating clear goals you help your team to make the right decisions during the time of organizational change.

3. Centralizing collaborations: When it comes to proper decision-making, clarity is the most important aspect. You need to ensure that your stakeholders and team members have updated information and where they can find them. That is why, with a centralized collaboration tool, you can ensure that your team has the right resources and information needed during the change.

3. Unstable business performance:

Organizational change is not due to growth but can be an unforeseen disruption in business - like a security breach. Your business performance might be at risk in case a sudden change happens. We have all experienced this due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Previously, businesses relied on in-person visitors but were now forced to take their businesses online. Restaurants shifted to home delivery, museums embraced virtual tours, and even touring agencies built online experiences. Each business had to change its goals to shift to online sales and adjust its processes accordingly. To top it off, they also had to deal with unstable business performance. But, with a little bit of prep work, you can create change management strategies to manage risks:

1. Conducting business impact analysis: Business Impact Analysis can help predict the consequence of any disruption to your business process. This can help answer your questions about how to keep your business running and what type of resources you need to operate your business successfully. The data you collect will help you plan how you can handle any unforeseen events.

2. Creating a contingency plan: When you create a contingency plan, you can pivot your business to not lose any revenue. Your contingency plan can identify any risks for any unforeseen organizational change and help you spring into action.

3. Laying a strong foundation: When your business has a good culture, with the right tools, and instills clear communication, you can calm the strongest storms. This means that you need to improve your organizational processes over time continuously.

Conclusion

Accepting organizational change can be difficult, mainly if it affects your daily work structure. So, with the right tools and planning, you can effectively transition your employees and businesses to shift smoothly. The key to overcoming barriers means accepting change management strategies not only in the entire process but in the communication plan as well. Change in results will help exceed expectations so that organizations can activate all the elements needed to help drive lasting change.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Why do employees resist organizational change and how can companies address it?

Employees resist change mostly due to fear of loss of job, sudden management change, and addition of workload. Companies can reduce this fear by communicating clearly with their employees and maintaining transparency throughout.

2. What are the biggest challenges in organizational change management?

Some of the biggest challenges in organizational change management are:

3. How does organizational change impact company culture?

A poorly coordinated organizational change can negatively impact company culture. It can:

4. How can emotional intelligence aid in managing organizational change?

Emotional intelligence connects employees with their employers. Senior managers can empathize with employees about the new and upcoming changes and reduce the resistance to change.