Change Management

In his marvellous book, 'Who Moved My Cheese', S. Johnson describes, through the metaphor of two mice attempting to find their way of of a chees maze, how change happens and how we need to anticipate change, monitor change, adapt to change quickly and change!

Humans naturally resist change and in the current and future times ahead we must learn to enjoy change, be ready to change quickly and enjoy it again and again

Human Responses to Change

There are four responses to change in people:

People who don’t see what’s happening
People who watch what’s happening
People who make things happen
People who wonder what happened

Resistance to Change

The biggest barrier to change is human resistance.

People resist change because they believe that they will lose something of value as a result of the change (money, status, power, social contact etc.).

They may have a different opinion about the need for change.

They may not understand what is happening or there is a breakdown in communications.

They may fear they will not be able to develop new skills or behaviors that will be required.

The Change Curve

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a medical doctor, worked with terminally ill patients. In her book, 'On Death and Dying', she noted that people who have been informed that they are terminally ill go through several cognitive and emotional stages before they accept their fate. As a result of this, Kubler-Ross devoted herself to aiding the dying and their families in progressing through these stages. The five stages she identified are shock and denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. This model of our response to change has been transposed into our workplaces and fits very well here.

Why People Change

It's all about pain and gain!

People change when the aviodance of pain seems worth the risk.

If a small baby crocodile comes onto your isalnd, you might consider a change to another island.

If a big nasty crodocile comes onto your island you become highly motivated to change!

But if you have to jump into the water with more crodociles in order to get to safety, it's pretty scary.

If only you could find a boat. A rowboat would be good, a speedboat even better.

No crocodiles, no change! Baby crocodiles, baby changes. Big crocodile, big changes!

Change Programmes

Change and change programmes are, however, necessarily difficult and complex to manage, and even, sometimes, to understand.

Our particular approach to change is to facilitate it and to make it happen though a series of supports.

These include:

Employee engagement surveys to get a baseline of where employees are at, what they think, and to set an action plan for organisation development

360 degree leadership feedback to enable managers and leaders gain insightful feedback from their direct reports, peers and boss(es)

360 degree feedback , a customised approach, to enable managers and leaders gain insightful feedback from their direct reports, peers and boss(es), dierctly related to your organisations core competencies and values around management and leadership.

TEAM feedback, a customised approach, to enable team members gain insightful feedback from their colleagues and boss(es), (peers if appropriate) dierctly related to their contribution to the team and team values.

Management development programmes for managers

Performance management systems and performance coaching

Contact Us

We would be delighted to talk to you about your organisation and people development needs.