Change, of any kind, is challenging but ultimately rewarding. There are no guarantees when it comes to change, since both macro and micro economic factors play a vital role in the dynamics of any organisation. But before reaping any rewards, your Executive Management must be prepared for certain barriers to initiating new change – and thereby successfully contribute to their enterprise transformation and change journey.
What barriers do you mean? Well, often the real barriers to organisational change are lurking beneath the surface and patiently waiting to disrupt your critical initiatives. They might be cultural, psychological, structural, or technological. Sometimes these barriers may intersect, interact, but sometimes they are difficult to accurately define.
Despite the best efforts of your Executive Leaders in planning for and communicating change, the rate at which change is occurring is increasing and impacting business progress. When examining an organisation’s capability to change, there must be a critical focus on Change Management strategies to address the barriers to change. Understanding the commercial impact of these barriers on change determines your Change Team’s response, recognises how to implement change effectively and by exploring unique strategies to common change challenges.
Why empowering broad-based actions is crucial to implement Change?
Overcoming adversity to successfully manage Organisational Change Management (OCM).
The key to leadership success during change is anticipation and applying the right mindset – putting appropriate strategies and processes in place before you introduce the change.
Even seasoned Executives can struggle when new change is complex (in scope), long-term and / or encounters strong resistance throughout the organisation. But the ability to move fast, adopt, and rapidly implement organisational change and innovation has taken on a new urgency. Irrespective of the reasons or actions behind the change, it is the way an organisation responds to change that determines its success or failure.
Navigating the Change journey
As market conditions become increasingly unpredictable, navigating your change journey becomes critically important, but this trajectory must work in a way that is best for everyone. It is so easy to get really excited about making organisational changes when you are the driving force behind the change, but it is a false persona without reflecting on the outside factors. Not everyone may share your enthusiasm and approach!
Managing adversity begins with cultural revolution
There is no certainty for any change initiative. With crucial consideration or positive responses from your team, there will be numerous encounters of varying levels of adversity with new change. Identifying the barriers to organisational change is only the first step to creating a consistent work process and an engaged work culture.
However, that investment in cultural revolution can pay enormous dividends for an organisation by ensuring that the expected Return-On-Investment (ROI) for the change manifests and as your change initiatives progress towards completion. The hurdles of Executive leadership, support, and cultural resistance – if employees are resistant to change, then successful change becomes almost impossible!
Catalyst from preparation to implementation of Change
The organisation, Executive Management, Senior Managers, and key stakeholders provide guidance with the coalition move from preparation for change to implementation of change by empowering broad-based action. All barriers to change must be eliminated.
With an organisation’s employees, the barriers to change do not begin and end here. Many of the barriers to change exist within the organisation itself and this is an internal view approach. If these barriers are not tackled, then even the most motivated employees may be obstructed in their individual desire to make effective organisational change.
Path from Current state to Future vision
Many organisational change initiatives fail because of the critical lack of attention to removing the barriers to change that exist within the organisation. The existing culture, infrastructure, IT systems, policies and procedures bind the entire organisation and employees to its current state. These combined elements are part of the fabric of the organisation, developed, changed, and embedded over many years.
The organisation simply must adjust, agree, and evolve to enable change to happen. The organisation’s structures, leadership, systems, and internal skills are key ingredients in any organisation and represent the hidden opportunities for improvement. This viewpoint is like a path leading towards change, since these elements are the infrastructure that carries the organisation from its current state to its future vision.
When you undertake a road trip, if the path taken or selected is not “fit for purpose”, then you will not get to your destination!
How to overcome barriers to change and selecting responsible innovation?
Breaking down innovation barriers is crucial in fostering creativity and advancing progress.
The task of implementing organisational change requires a delicate balance between showing commitment and purpose with understanding your employees’ needs and prioritising organisational growth. By fostering an innovative culture and positive work environment for employees, your Leaders can effectively navigate the complexities of disrupted change. This ensures that their teams are not just receptive but also enthusiastic participants in the change journey.
What must also be considered is the two (2) critical points that continue to stop people achieving their desired results – lack of time to think and lack of confidence. Notwithstanding, if you can prioritise time to think and build your employees and teams confidence to manage their fear of change, then it will unlock many of the common barriers to change innovation.
With that in mind, every business is unique, every change initiative is unique, and there is no secret formula that can guarantee innovation success. Often, innovative ideas disrupt the existing systems within organisations. But innovation comes with purpose, the freedom to act upon innovative ideas and a critical chance to demonstrate and execute the Change Management Plan. This is the unique (and true) challenge with change since great ideas can come from anyone across the organisation.
The main barriers to change may include the following:
1. Fear of Failure
Risk and failure are inevitable. So, both elements must be managed with a positive and initiative-taking mindset. Some change projects will never gain traction or start, while others will have one or more roadblocks to navigate. All it requires is simply a strategic pivot along the way.
When tempted to “play it safe”, remember that there is risk in not actioning innovation. Risk-taking is important for innovation because it enables Leaders and Change Teams to explore new possibilities, test assumptions, learn from failures, and adapt to changing conditions. Risk-taking can also foster creativity, resilience, growth, and generate impact, as well as attract attention and resources from potential partners and supporters.
Solution
Minimise Risk – you can drastically minimise risk by strengthening your proof-of-concept process, working within a Change Management Framework, and generating timely internal feedback. Since internal bias is inevitable, working with an external Change Agent or Consultant can help with the people side of change. The more informed your decisions, the greater your rate of success.
Reframe Failure – by reframing failure as a learning and growth opportunity, you and your team will feel more confident to innovate and develop your new project, service, or process. When failures occur, you must use data insights to pinpoint and understand where things went wrong, how to avoid similar mistakes in the future, and what are the learning and growth opportunities.
2. Recognising the requirement for Change
The inability to recognise and act on signalled market changes is the critical area of failing on opportunity. Many organisations can become internally blinded by products, services, and processes that are currently working that they fail to re-evaluate their present-day relevance. The longer something has been working, the more difficult it is to recognise a need to change, evolve, or even shift gears.
Your unique area of opportunity may not be as disruptive but may be valuable, if only the opportunity is realised. For example, every organisation has fallen behind at one point or another in either adopting or fully leveraging new and existing technology.
Solution
Leverage Data – put a reporting system in place to monitor internal trends, external trends, and global trends that signal market changes. Thanks to data insights gained from modern data and analytics software, this makes the process that much easier. The objective is to first identify the trend, then the need for change with existing infrastructure.
External Insights – from keeping a close eye on your competitors to attending industry events and working with third-party Change specialists. For example, hiring an external expert (Chane Agent) and Consultant to provide an objective view of your change transformation process.
3. Refine collaboration with formal organisational structures
Traditionally, the hierarchical organisation has been the “Go-To” structure for corporates, businesses, non-profits, and governments across the world. But that norm may be changing. Existing hierarchies and siloed operations make it extremely difficult to collaborate or act with the cross-functional viewpoints needed, with actioning change initiatives.
Solution
As market competition increases, organisations must become more efficient by shedding Management layers and more importantly, then widening spans of control and delegation. With fewer layers, these organisations can involve front-line employees in strategic decisions and respond to innovations and changes in the market more quickly.
To eliminate such barriers to change, Executive Management Teams and Leaders must identify organisation-wide systems and approaches that will aid collaboration and focus on effective execution of change communication. By providing the structures, tools, and mechanisms to enable employees to collaborate this effectively makes it easier with attracting and retaining the best talent.
Collaborative and organisational structures support this type of agility with improved communication and a greater ability to change.
4. Leadership styles
Inherent leadership styles may inhibit change revolution. In organisations that are process-led, Managers may focus on the tasks and rather than their people. Their ingrained idea of success is getting the tasks or project completed, and they pay very little to no attention with the motivation of employees and their morale.
Solution
Leaders play a critical role in influencing and encouraging their people to change. They need to be good storytellers and speak authentically. Multiple communication channels should be used to reach out to employees and who have different communication preferences – and Managers should be open to constructive feedback and so Leaders can deliver a Strategic Roadmap for the path towards the organisation’s future.
By creating an environment where creative solutions are embraced and with encouraging autonomy, Leaders help transition their employees mindset to feel empowered and valued. Once there is a clear and concise vision, it will be easier to communicate innovative ideas to your team and inspire them to follow your lead.
Finally, remember that leadership is not about being perfect but by authentically leading people towards change. When you lead from a place of passion, commitment, and purpose, your employees will naturally be drawn to you and your message. However, as a Leader, it is critically important to be open to (and to actively seek) feedback but be willing to adjust your change approach as required.
5. Restrictive systems and processes
Your current systems and processes, which are familiar to your people, may present multiple barriers to change. Additional workloads during implementation of modern technology systems and processes are likely to decrease the time available to learn new systems. The consistent response is that employees revert backwards to their old systems and processes and by effectively disengaging from the involvement with change initiatives.
Solution
Strategies to tackle these barriers to change may include hiring temporary staff or Change Leaders to reduce workload, while additional training is provided on new systems. Modern technology improves efficiency and productivity and enables an easier transition towards the new vision.
To enable richer and better institutional practices, Leaders need to think and plan strategically about how their teams collaborate using the current technology. As the business environment, customer, technology, and employee needs change, it is important to think critically about the structure of your organisation and initiate changes in a deliberate and strategic way.
6. Lack of internal skills
It is almost inevitable that there will be a lack of internal skills to traverse the growing gap between the current state and the future vision. New systems and processes will be unfamiliar, and new hierarchical structures may lead to misunderstanding and difficulty in interpreting the information critical to navigating success.
Solution
Investment in training and development for managers and employees is vital, not an expensive ‘nice-to-have’ scenario. Time must be allocated to provide the organisation’s people with the skills they need. Leaders should identify the values, behaviours and skills needed by collaborating with Leaders from Human Resources and Training Development.
This team focus on building formal structures for training, coaching, and recognition and reward mechanisms then helps align values, behaviours and skills with those employees needed to make successful change.
7. Insufficient resources of time or budget
With pending change, allocating time and resources is a delicate balance. Consideration must be given to not overextending your Project Budget and resources, but Executive Sponsors must invest funds ($) and required resources to bring each project to life.
If the budget, timeline, or number of team members and specialists allocated to a Change Project is too tight or inflexible or lacks attention – then, your project is doomed to fail!
Solution
Expect the Unexpected – build in a small cushion or contingencies within the budget. While the sooner the better is true, focusing too heavily on timeline or budget can compromise quality with delivering a successful project. Your Change Team needs to stay on course, on time and on budget, but unexpected roadblocks are inevitable with any change initiative. A balancing act but curating reasonable creative constraints will help.
Innovate in Phases – by undertaking a phased approach with innovation, this introduces the successful trio – Process > Method > Structure. These three (3) levels require appropriate co-ordination with each other to ensure the holistic design of the innovation process. Each phase in the innovation process (WHAT) therefore includes corresponding methods (HOW) and structures (WHO).
- WHAT is being implemented? – The Conception Phase is about devising appropriate concepts from the ideas previously gained.
- HOW is implementation performed? – Various tools and methods can be used in the Concept Phase of the innovation process (e.g. the Lead User method, service design, or a technology upgrade).
- WHO makes the decisions? – In a functioning innovation process, it is clearly defined who in the company is responsible for each phase.
Summary
To lead change successfully you need to engage with people psychologically, intellectually, and a committed purpose.
The challenges with implementing successful Change Management initiatives will always exist, but this is expected when delivering scaled change of any complexity. By empowering broad-based action, the guiding coalition of your Executive Management, Change Leaders, and structured leadership will eliminate the barriers to change that currently exist in the organisation’s current state – and maintain focus on the strategic vision with the future change journey.
Every change initiative faces resistance and obstacles. There are many common barriers with engaging strategic change, and these are not insurmountable. However, their initial foundations and existence must be respected. By understanding these barriers to Change Management, your Change Leaders will execute new strategies, methods, and tools to overcome them.
All change initiatives will ask employees to move away from their comfortable status quo. It is no surprise when morale is low, tensions are high, and they fight back. The key steps for Leaders and Managers are to possess a deeper understanding of the emotional effects of change – with better self-awareness and social awareness – then, they will be more qualified to inspire (and influence) through change and develop a winning team.
Need some guidance on your next steps? Let’s start a conversation…
