Organizational change management - Your restructuring challenges

Most companies don’t start big. Instead, they start in a garage, a basement, a two-room office complex with a shoestring budget and a skeleton staff. In the early stages of growth, it’s not hard to handle organizational change management. Later, when your company matures, it becomes a little harder. And when your company grows astronomically, as many pharmaceutical and internet companies have in the last ten years, you may find that organizational change management has become too complex to handle by yourself.

That’s not surprising. Organizational change management is often stressful on management and staff alike. It’s a period of insecurity and uncertainty – is your company going to be able to handle the growth? How much new infrastructure is needed? If you buy someone else out, who is going to be let go in the interests of efficiency?

The best way to handle this is by breaking it down into bits, and arranging for that necessary evil, a committee, to manage the changes.

Strategic planning in organizational change management

Like any large project, your first step is to arrange a blueprint. This is your strategic plan, and should not come out of your head, but rather out of your organizational change management team, drawn from every department and every level in your company. It should address the changes you anticipate in each department, and should list the anticipated new departments developing from your changing infrastructure. The organizational change management committee should organize a new and realistic budget (which is a large part of why you should have at least one member from every department and every management and staffing level). And you should give them a time limit. The true evil of a committee is that they tend to go on . . . and on. . . and on. . . . By posting deadlines, you avoid the problem of having them argue things to death.

Above all, it should address communication. Many organizational change management plans have been destroyed by a lack of two-way communication; suddenly no one knows who to go to when something is needed, or when suggestions for improving current methodologies arise. When communication breaks down at a low level, the rest of the company will ultimately suffer. One of your best bets is to have regular updates to tell your employees about implemented changes that affect them directly and indirectly. To keep morale up, be as honest as you can. Consider publishing an internal monthly newsletter to keep everyone informed on new and upcoming changes, and post all public documents on an internal company website.

A good consultant or two to help you manage these details and, especially, the time consumed by your committee might be a good idea. You can find many companies specializing in organizational change management online or you can locate specialists within large human resources firms.

Your organizational change management plan

You should start your organizational change management’s team planning with your own expectations. What are your goals for these restructuring changes? What are your financial expectations? Do you have ideals that conflict with your financial expectations (for instance, do you have a strong personal or contractual objection to laying off employees?) And what dead weight are you wanting to slice out of your company?

Don’t give time extensions. Expect your organizational change management team to present you with specific time points for finishing stages of your organizational restructuring – and then expect them to meet those time points.

If you use a consultant to help with organizational change management, really use them. Include them in every meeting, and encourage them to talk (not that you’ll really have to!); call them when you have any questions. You’re paying good money for a consultant, so really take advantage of them.

And look in all the dark nooks and crannies of your business. Organizational change is hard work, and it’s usually no fun. But what’s even worse is moving your organizational change management plan forward, only to discover you’ve left out minor, but crucial, bits of the puzzle, such as software upgrades or document storage plans.

Good planning, asking your consultant the right questions, and looking at each detail of your company will all lead to excellent organizational change management.

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