The Human Toll Of Organizational Change Management

Over the last few decades, it is fair to say that anyone in the workforce would have experienced an organizational transformation or led their own teams through change. In times of turmoil and economic uncertainty, organizations are often forced to change course rapidly. How organizational leaders navigate and steer their teams through this turmoil ultimately determines the success of the change and its impact on people.

The ambiguity and uncertainty that accompanies a transformation journey can be a minefield for leaders, creating unnecessary noise and angst. As an HR professional, you become accustomed to being part of the engine room, working alongside leaders, designing and re[1]designing organizational structures, costing, meticulously planning, debating and executing wave after wave of organizational change, perhaps coming through the other side battle-weary and hardened.

Leading an organizational transformation can be challenging, painfully slow and requires expertise in change management. While there are many change methodologies available to guide your approach, PROSCI or ADKAR, Kotter’s model to name a few, all of these involve careful planning, stakeholder mapping and consultation as well as execution excellence. What cannot be emphasized enough, though, is the need for proactive communication, leader engagement at all levels of the organization and deep empathy for the people in the organization. Unfortunately, these fundamentals can get missed, and this is why organizational transformations go pear-shaped.

LACK OF COMMUNICATION

There is nothing more damaging to engagement levels than poor communication. Humans are story-telling creatures by nature. In the absence of information, people speculate, gossip and make up their own stories about what is going on, usually jumping to the worst-case scenario. Hence, it is important to have regular, proactive communication from which all leaders in the organization are consistently messaging. Where possible, communication should be done in person, authentically and frequently. All employee meetings or town halls are a good vehicle to update everyone together. Even if there is no new information to share on the change, you can still hold space for questions, listen to the sentiment in the room and respond with empathy and understanding.

“SUPPORTING PEOPLE TO PROCESS CHANGE AT THEIR OWN PACE AND VALIDATING THEIR EXPERIENCE OF LOSS IS NECESSARY TO ENABLE THEM TO MOVE FORWARD”

LACK OF ENGAGEMENT WITH LEADERS

Organizational re-design usually starts with the executive leadership team. However, where organizations can fail is by not engaging early with their mid-level and frontline leaders. I have seen situations where leaders have been expected to execute changes with their teams at short notice, sometimes within hours. This does not allow the time necessary for leaders to process the context around the change, grasp what is changing and why, or anticipate the likely emotional reactions that will erupt from their team members. Leaders at all levels of the organization must be brought on board with the planned change as early as possible and given sufficient time for them to process their personal impact, ask questions and receive answers.

LACK OF CONSULTATION AND PLANNING AROUND THE PROPOSED CHANGES

Without taking the appropriate time to engage with leaders and work through all the moving parts and what might go wrong, organizations miss a critical step in stakeholder consultation. It then becomes difficult to identify where obstacles might be encountered deeper into the organization and how these can be overcome. This stage of planning before execution is needed to get leaders on board and to have any hope of embedding and sustaining the change. It is also critical to ensure leaders are prepared, skilled and practiced before having conversations with their team members, especially for notification meetings around a role change or redundancy.

FAILURE TO ANTICIPATE AND MANAGE RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

Employee resistance to change is what ultimately makes or breaks organizational transformation. Understanding and overcoming the resistance barrier requires a deep understanding of the reasons why people are reluctant to get on board. This requires intimate knowledge of how the change will impact people, their concerns or fears, motivators and drivers. Any kind of change or disruption to routine is painful. People need to be clear on the reasons for the change and the vision, feel a compelling reason to go through the pain involved and have the skills and resources required for implementation.

FAILURE TO ACKNOWLEDGE HUMAN EXPERIENCE OF LOSS

Leaders can best help themselves and their teams by acknowledging that there will be loss through every change. Kubler’s change curve model demonstrates that people process change at different speeds and experience a range of emotions throughout the stages of grief. Supporting people to process change at their own pace and validating their experience of loss is necessary to enable them to move forward.their experience of loss is necessary to enable them to move forward.

The cost to the organization of getting change management wrong is massive in terms of dollars and time invested. Not to mention the impact that a disengaged workforce can have on customer relationships and retention, revenue growth and profitability, organizations that are more change-agile have learned from previous failures and see the benefit in embracing change management methodology and best practices around preparing leaders for change readiness.

Throughout any successful organizational transformation, the ‘secret sauce’ is how leaders (including HR professionals) show up and show genuine care for their people during the transition. Having been involved in designing and executing many organizational restructures, I can’t tell you the number of times that I have questioned myself, challenged leaders, felt physically ill before going into tough conversations, lost many nights of sleep worrying about the emotional responses, and whether people would be ok or not, drank a little too much to try and unwind, cried over those people I respected and valued that were exiting (including my manager on one occasion) and have wrestled with the guilt of being a conspirator in people-impacting decisions in order to save the bottom line.

While there is no question that leading and managing organizational change can take its toll, I know that the day it ceases to affect me personally is the day I need to leave the profession. Empathy, kindness and compassion are essential human qualities for leaders to demonstrate and are instrumental in showing care and treating others with dignity and respect. Should caring for people ever cease to be at the forefront of leaders’ hearts and minds during organizational transformation, we may as well hand over change management to AI technology.