Change enablement professionals identify and create urgency for organizational change. We help people understand why they need to change behaviors within a specific timeframe because people support organizational change<\/a> when they can relate to it and understand the urgency.<\/p>\n The first opportunity for an audience to choose between resisting and supporting a change is when they learn why the organization is making the change in the first place. This may also be referred to as the “business case for change<\/a>.” This should occur very early in the project or initiative and is what Prosci refers to as the “Awareness” phase<\/a> \u2014 the first of their five-phased ADKAR methodology.<\/p>\n Aligning people with a change and gaining their support is vital to a successful transition. COVID-19 created an urgency that people immediately reacted to and began to adapt based on their specific areas, workplace roles and requirements. Because of this, many people instantly engaged with the necessary changes. They wanted to learn more about what it meant for them and their world. Change and business leaders jumped in to help support this desire for knowledge and action.<\/p>\n We realized three beneficial change enablement<\/a> outcomes from the urgency and alignment that occurred during the peak of the pandemic:<\/strong><\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a closer look at each of these outcomes.<\/p>\n The speed of change drastically increases when you have people\u2019s support, and they align around the need for the change.<\/p>\n Workers and working environments shifted overnight thanks to COVID-19. For millions of people, everything shifted to a new reality in one day \u2014 a historical change event. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, leaders, managers, employees and customers found themselves interacting in very different ways, spaces and times.<\/strong> For the first time, change leaders<\/a> didn\u2019t have to manufacture urgency \u2013 the urgency was real.<\/p>\n Businesses determined how to remain effective and efficient, with large percentages of their employees working remotely, many for the first time. We watched as:<\/p>\n As soon as people and organizations formed new ways of working<\/a>, governmental rules and guidelines shifted, and people had to rethink how they worked, yet again. Effective change enablement helped people continuously adopt new behaviors and technologies with lightning speed<\/a> by focusing on the following three key areas:<\/p>\n These techniques started to become ingrained in leader behaviors.<\/strong> It will be important to maintain these behaviors for the future while we continue to migrate to the continually transforming business landscape.<\/p>\n Another beneficial impact was the compulsory reimagining of how people work together.<\/p>\n People unexpectedly and immediately began working from home, creating makeshift desks from kitchen tables, bedroom dressers, living room sofas, and more. This was a major shift for a lot of people. In addition to working remotely<\/a>, many were juggling family needs while trying to find a quiet place to work.<\/strong><\/p>\n Because people were wearing multiple hats simultaneously \u2013 employee, caregiver, teacher \u2013 sometimes, people weren\u2019t available for conference calls. Also, people could no longer walk over to their coworker to chat about a challenge they were facing, to talk about a project\u2019s next steps, or to just say \u201chi!\u201d.<\/p>\n Because of the shift to remote working, differences in interactions and managing personal situations, companies and people needed to understand how they could work together effectively to get things done. To enable flexible interaction among employees and maintain working relationships, companies relied on technology. They began heavily using collaboration tools, like Microsoft Teams<\/a> \u2013 some of which were new to their employees. Technology was key to helping people interact while continuing to keep companies successful.<\/strong><\/p>\n We saw change leaders help people adapt and shift to new ways of interacting to maintain relationships and get work done. Shifts requiring change expertise included:<\/p>\n As we shift and consider the future of work, these experiences will continue to define our working relationships, especially as more companies adopt hybrid working models<\/a>.<\/p>\n Change leaders worked with senior leaders to rapidly develop communication strategies and craft empathetic, transparent messages they delivered with cadences not previously seen. Weekly or biweekly communication schedules became standard at the outset of the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n
1. Increased Speed of Adoption<\/h2>\n
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2. Reimagined People Interaction Model<\/h2>\n
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3. Frequent and Empathetic Communications for Better Change Enablement<\/h2>\n