Change Management

Change management is a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, communities and organisations from a current state to a desired future state.

The current definition of Change Management includes both group change management processes and individual change management models, which together are used to manage the people side of change. Organisational change management includes processes and tools for managing the people side of the change at an organisational level.

These tools include a structured approach that can be used to effectively transition groups or organisations through change. When combined with an understanding of individual change management, these tools provide a framework for managing the people side of change. Organisational change management processes include techniques for creating a change management strategy (readiness assessments), engaging senior managers as change leaders (sponsorship), building awareness of the need for change (communications), developing skills and knowledge to support the change(education and training), helping employees move through the transition (coaching by managers and supervisors), and methods to sustain the change (measurement systems, rewards and reinforcement).

A lot of our work on Change Management is based on the Action Science Model of Prof. Chris Argyris (1923). Action Science is a strategy for increasing the skills and confidence of individuals in groups to create any kind of organisation and to foster long-term individual and group effectiveness. This strategy applies to any form of human relations, either organisational, group, or interpersonal contexts where individuals work on challenging tasks together.