Anchoring Changes
I presented different points on how management can ensure a good change process. An equally important part of change management concerns the anchoring of changes.
Now, we will examine what happens after these changes are implemented. What other support systems, processes, or changes can be applied for the changes to remain, while continuing to be effective? And how does the change manager know whether the interventions made a difference?
We are often motivated for changes when a change agent, manager, or consultant is watching. As soon as the observer leaves, we have a tendency to fall back to the "old way" of doing things. Managers might support the changes because they feel compelled to follow the consultant's recommendations. Still, they may subsequently encounter a hard time continuing to work with change after the change manager has finished his/her job. Perhaps organization members do not have the required skills to adapt to the changes. It requires educational training and may take months to achieve results. In these situations, one needs methods to maintain and stabilize the progress achieved during the change process and push the organization through the last steps of the changes, to make them persistent. The challenge is to develop a technique to "make the new way stick". To maintain changes, most experts suggest that the changes become institutionalized. The objective is to develop methods that support the desired direction, remove barriers and implement opportunities for regular evaluation and renewal.
Seven methods for anchoring changes 1. Team meetings 2. Organizational "ambiance meetings". The managers hear directly from the organization's members how they think the changes are working out. 3. Group meetings across the department 4. Renewal meetings. Managers and employees discuss and evaluate the change. 5. Targeted performance review 6. Visits by external consultants 7. Reward Maintaining changes requires creating a system, structures, or processes that prevent you from reverting to old habits.
Traditionally, change is perceived as a problem, whereas the systemic perspective regards it as a natural development that constantly takes place, whereby it is about how you relate to it. In general, changes can be divided into two:
• Changes that will be decided and implemented by the organization itself (such as mergers and new work procedures).
• Changes that occur in society, over which the organization has no control (such as new legislation).
This was the 5th and last part of Introduction to Change Management, to read the previous parts, see below:
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