Introducing Organizational Change

When introducing any kind of business improvement process, companies go through an upheaval referred to as "organizational change."

Here are some interesting facts about organizational change, from the research specialists at Prosci.

• The #1 contributor to organizational change success is active, strong and visible sponsorship throughout the project.
• The top obstacles to successful change are employee resistance at all levels: front-line, middle managers, and senior managers and inadequate senior management sponsorship.
  Employees want to hear messages about change from two people: the CEO and their immediate supervisor - the message they want to hear from each individual is very different.
• When asked what they would do differently next time, most teams would dedicate resources to change management.
• The top reason for employee resistance is a lack of awareness about the change.

Organizational change is the implementation of new procedures or technologies intended to realign an organization with the changing demands of its business environment, or to capitalize on business opportunities.

BOTTOMLINE: Most organizations say their most important assets are their people, but few behave as if this were true. Organizations don't adapt to change; their people do. And the reason people resist change is because they like to have their expectations met and what they perceive as change often comes in the form of inconsistency.