All organizations experience change: new processes, new technologies, mergers, rapid growth, downsizing, a new management team, new offerings…the list goes on. The success of each change can be measured in people terms: satisfaction, confidence and engagement.

Change starts with you. Once you begin the change journey, others will follow. I have been shaping the people side of change management for most of my career and have found that the most critical part of successful change management is securing executive team buy-in. Ensuring that everyone is visibly demonstrating support for the initiative through powerful communication and reinforcement. The most challenging part of change management, however, is making sure that stakeholders get on board with and support change from initiation well into the ‘new normal’.

Depending on the nature of the change, an employee or an entire stakeholder group may initially feel threatened by the change. In such cases, experience shows that the best way to gain their trust is to provide clarity around the question of “what’s in it for me!” Without adoption and usage, we end up getting “solutions without results”.

The change process

As a Prosci-certified Change Management professional, I follow a proven methodology known as ADKAR (awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, reinforcement®). It is designed to optimize stakeholder acceptance of and engagement with change.