What normally happens in a change programme?

People talk to me about what I expect will happen in their change programme...the short answer is 'who knows?', but that isn't terribly professional or practical!

As it is people that stop change, make change happen, embrace change it is not very easy to say that one person, cadre of people, team etc will hold a specific view and will take a particular position. But if nothing is done to get people to support a change then, unremarkably, there is a real chance that nothing will happen. How many times in our professional careers have we seen that an IT system enhancement is delivered, but all the users do is carry on working in the 'old way'? How long did it take some colleagues to use email, rather than secretary-typed memos!

People have egos, issues, personal crises, work ethics, social, political and religious viewpoints, hangovers....they all need nurturing to work through a change. They will go through various stages dependent on their starting point (based on Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' work );

• denial ('this can't be happening');
• anger ('why me - I won't let it happen');
• bargaining ('if I do this, what will it mean for me')
• depression ('Ok, I suppose that we have to do this')
• acceptance ('Let's just get on with it')

We can talk about whether these are actually the stages another day, but the principles are appropriate.

The challenges do not stop with an understanding of where individuals are with respect to working through the stages - because teams, unions, 'coffee-machine cliques' all have different views, as do managers, boards, shareholders, customers - every individual stakeholder and stakeholder group will need to be managed through the change - and working out which individual or group can really prevent or delay or change and then dealing with it is really what makes managing change interesting. For some individuals or groups a simple website with a feedback mechanism might be sufficient, others might need weekly briefings and monthly reports, others might reasonably be totally ignored - it is the structured approach to this, with regular monitoring via a 'heatmap' or similar that will help ensure that your change is successful. Alongside all of this, you have to ensure that the practical aspects of the change on a time/cost/quality basis is delivered successfully too!