Many consultancies try to rigorously impose a
'standard' change methodology on all clients, irrespective of the nature or
culture of the client's organisation or of the nature of the current required
change.
Apart from the obvious learning curve that this forces
on the client organisation's managers and staff, often this leads to an early
mismatch between the objectives of the consultant and those of the client.
At Change¦unction
we
select the most appropriate support tools
from our 'change toolkit' to enable changes to be implemented as quickly and as
painlessly as possible.
Working
with the client we seek to understand the nature of their organisation - it's
managers and individuals : it's processes and it's politics, the business
drivers for the change, the desired outcomes and, most importantly, the
potential impact on customers, managers, staff and other stakeholders.
Once
these elements are understood (and the process often also helps to clarify these
things for the client by the way) then we will look at the potential obstacles
and barriers to change alongside the things that will enable change to be
effective.
By
understanding all this, with the client we can form a plan to build a bridge
from the old to the new.
The
real 'power tool' in our toolkit is our ability to facilitate
managers and team members to understand,
commit to and manage
the change for themselves.
We
are pragmatic about change, not dogmatic. We are adaptable and flexible.
(When did you ever experience a plan that went exactly according to the initial
specification?) We listen and respond to client needs and ideas - it's their
organisation we are helping to change after all.
We
consider all our change programmes as opportunities to transfer repeatable
organisational change management skills to our client's people and to this end
we seek to work in partnership with all the participants in the change from the
most senior leaders to the most junior new starter.