Article by: Andre Peters of Gulf Bank in Kuwait
According to John Kotter most credible evidence suggests that change will happen at a more rapid pace in the business environment in the future. Change is physical, like moving from point A to point B, but transition is an inward psychological process that people need to go through to come to terms with a new situation and this takes time.
There are four stages in the change management process that forms the foundation of successful change management. Firstly, a sense of urgency needs to be created. If nothing happened to disturb organizational life, change would be very slow and perhaps, merely accidental. Creating a sense of discomfort is crucial to gaining the needed co-operation to bring about change. Secondly, a strong guiding coalition is needed to make sure that change happens successfully. A team that is composed of the right people, who have credibility and work well together as a team. Transformational leadership is needed. See diagram below.
Thirdly, companies need to formulate a vision and strategy for the change. A good vision clarifies the general direction for change, motivates people to take action in the right direction and helps to co-ordinate the actions of different people. The last step is communicating the change. Clear, simple, memorable, often repeated, consistent communication, modeled by executive behavior is needed. Leaders need to be aware of change management and applying it in the form of transformational leadership.