Most change in organizations today occurs because of large-scale new technological project implementation.  

When smaller enterprises implement a new technology within the organization platform, the company is often required to make organizational changes as well.

At the same time, managers often face challenges in establishing the fundamental importance of the successful implementation and the benefits of the changes that go with it.  

Simply put, most project managers think of change management as something that happens later in the project-management life cycle.  But there are ways of putting the process high on the company’s agenda.

According to Marcia Xenitelis, the first and most important distinction to be made is that a change manager’s role is to enable change to happen.  Managers don’t drive the change, but rather provide tools and encouragement to engage employees in the process of change.

Rather, most project managers and small-business leaders think of change management as the “soft stuff”doing the communication, training and human-resources requirements of the change.  What they fail to understand is that the “soft stuff” is really the fundamental driver of change.  A change project, whether focused on technology or business change, is of little value if employees are not engaged in the change itself and the reason for itand therefore the benefits of that change.

When managing a project that drives change, think about such phases as communication, stakeholder engagement, training, human-resources issues and measurement.  Then decide what activities, actions and strategies to recommend to during each of these phases and identify the precise benefit to the project manager and business leader. This requires the project manager to specify specific change-management advice to be included in each of these phases for the project’s success.

Even with the focus on the project, the essential ingredient for any successful change program is management/leadership commitment to the proposed strategy.  The greatest challenge, therefore, for change managers is to ensure that leaders do not waiver from the challenges ahead.  Change is hard, whether one is at the frontline or at the executive leadership level.  But the most difficult role in which to cope with change is that of the CEO, because of pressures from leadership-team members’ warning against the changes, unrest among staff, and questions regarding the strategy.  And it is always safer to stay with what is known, even if it would not result in the best outcome for the organization, rather than to take a risk to try to innovate and do something new that is untested.

Here are some specific suggestions:

Establish a project-management team comprising key leaders that focuses on enterprise-wide change and dependencies and which is chaired by the CEO or department head.  This ensures that the narrow “silo” mentality is broken down as managers are required to adapt to a new process, that is, thinking of their specific project and the impact across the organization, which in turn changes behavior.

Ensure that communication is timely and aligned with progress at each change meeting. It is essential to communicate how each project and strategy implementation is aligned with the enterprise-wide vision and direction of the organization.  This way, employees and managers will understand how individual projects are linked and how the organizational strategy is dependent on their all coming together.

Ensure that all members of the leadership team are aligned.  They must have consistent messaging regarding the direction they are communicating, which must be linked to the organizational vision and strategy.  They need to communicate this face to face and influence support, providing specific details of the positive outcomes of the strategy to those who are accountable for driving its aspects.

Identify and communicate the performance requirements linked to the strategy and confirm this at regular intervals throughout the year, keeping everyone focused on the strategy and tasks.

Ensure that all managers make the strategy reviews and updates a key part of their regular team meetings.

Put engagement strategies in place before implementation, because implementation is the most difficult aspect of any project to manage successfully, as this is when the project becomes real, and most resistance will occur at this phase.

Identify those members of the leadership team most likely to be committed to achieving the outcomes and design a specific role for them to influence their peers and their management teams.

Ensure that middle managers are engaged from the beginning so they feel less threatened by the unknown. Where project management falls down is at the middle-management level, unless it has been engaged from the beginningand this means being actually involved in the project and able to influence its direction.  This is where significant undermining of project implementation occurs, and that is based largely in fear.  Find out what the fear is and address it.

At all times, senior management must provide direction for the strategy, ensure that appropriate resources, both people and financial, are available; be focused on, directly involved in and aware of all the issues and risks of the projectand most importantly, provide updates and direction on an ongoing basis.  The role of the change manager is to support this by ensuring that all the issues that could derail the project are dealt with, so that the senior leadership does not backtrack on the strategy.

Finally, to maintain commitment to change, all projects need to be integrated into the longer-term strategy and vision of the organization, and all employees from frontline to senior leadership must understand how the project and their role contributes to the overall vision. Change is successful only when it is seamlessly integrated into the way the organization operates, not as an appendage to the organization.  And once leaders experience the benefits of initiating change management at the beginning of a project instead of at the implementation phase, the challenge of getting change management on the project agenda will no longer be an issue.

Marcia Xenitelis is a recognized authority on the subject of change communication and helping organizations get traction with strategy.  She has consulted widely to businesses, spoken at conferences around the world and has developed products focused on change management. For access to case studies about, more information on and resources for the types of strategies one can implement to engage employees, visit www.marciaxenitelis.com.