There is substantial evidence that trained staff make a significant difference.
In Healthcare, there are examples of untrained staff making critical errors such as administering the wrong medication or dosage.
In Construction, untrained staff may misuse heavy equipment and fail to follow safety protocols, leading to accidents or death.
In Cyber Security, untrained staff have been known to mishandle sensitive data or fall victim to scams leading to significant fines from the authorities due to data breaches.
This illustrates a clear relationship between training, or lack of training, in those professions where mistakes lead to severe consequences.
Accidental Managers
This need for training extends beyond these fields. Management in general suffers from a poor reputation, with a large percentage of managers being unqualified.
A recent online survey among qualified Change Managers found that only 20% felt their organisation had sufficient trained managers for their change portfolio.
Many are “accidental managers” who are given the role with limited or no training. This applies to change management and project management, where the absence of formal training can lead to ineffective leadership and poor outcomes.
Cobbs Paradox
In project management, there is a very well-known observation – Cobbs Paradox – we know why projects fail, we know how to prevent their failure – so why do they still fail?
Do “accidental managers” and lack of training play a part?
Change Management vs Project Management
Commonly change initiatives involve a combination of change management and project management. Change management is primarily focused on the people side of the change or transformation.
Prior to the change, Change Managers assess change readiness and evaluate the likely impacts on various groups within the business. During the change, Change Managers work to help people understand why the change is necessary, minimise resistance and help people adapt to the new processes, technology or structure. To achieve this, they need a deep understanding of the organisation’s formal and informal culture, ways of working, power structures, and more.
A key aspect of Change Management is also ensuring that change is embedded, becomes the new business as usual, and this work may continue for a significant period after a project has closed.
Project management is more focused on the execution, planning, managing and eventual closure of projects. Project managers handle resource management, timelines, budget and the appropriate sequencing of tasks. In short, ensuring the technical aspects necessary to introduce the organisational change are completed.
The Key to Success: The Right Team
Based on an extensive study of major projects, Bent Fluberg and Dan Gardener identified one obvious and very clear common denominator across successful projects, namely hiring the right team.
In large projects that involve multiple organisations or different technologies, it is possible to find an experienced team and try to engage them to run your project. This is similar to the successful sports manager supported by a team of other coaches and specialists. But would this work for a change initiative? Depending on the change initiative, it may.
By definition, I believe that hiring the best team would involve bringing in external consultants. As with every procurement decision there are pluses and minuses. External consultants bring a fresh perspective and specialist expertise. Working alongside a capable internal team, they are enabled to understand the culture and to deal with resistance when introducing change. Working with consultants requires senior management engagement to provide detailed knowledge of the company’s culture and processes. Senior management need to ensure the organisation’s staff are engaged and support the change initiative, otherwise it is doomed to failure.
A highly trained and qualified internal team working alongside technical external consultants, is likely the best choice for most organisations. However, it may be expensive and time-consuming to bring that team together and get them working effectively. The internal team will understand the culture and have relationships with the key stakeholders throughout the organisation. Some team members may object and feel that the change is not right for the organisation, but this could be balanced by other members of the team.
The Value of Change Management Training
The value of change management training is to have highly qualified people within the organisation who understand the culture, can work effectively with external consultants, and are able to drive through organisational change.
The dilemma, similar to Cobb’s Paradox, is that unless the organisation is in a state of constant change, there may not be sufficient initiatives to keep this highly qualified team engaged. However, it is becoming increasingly common for organisations to continuously evolve so a strong internal change team could support other teams throughout the organisation.
Most professionals take several years to gain academic qualifications. Building a high performing change team could take a similar amount of time. Developing such a team would be neither cheap nor quick, but would offer several benefits including:
Higher morale and better collaboration across the organisation, as there is likely to be a higher degree of trust between the people driving the initiative and the rest of the organisation.
Enhanced productivity and a smoother transition due to the background knowledge the change team will have.
Increased resilience and a network of change champions, coached and mentored by the core team, to help change initiatives become embedded throughout the organisation. Having successfully delivered one internal change programme, this team could provide an organisation with a competitive edge, as they would be able to manage and deliver any change or other major challenge faced by the organisation such as introducing emerging market technology, innovation, regulatory compliance, cultural transformation, a sustainability programme or simply dealing with technological advancements.
Change management training can help organisations survive
With a cadre of skilled and highly capable individuals to either deliver change programmes, and be seen as peers to external consultants brought in by the Board, the organisation can affect deep and long-lasting change.
The Goals of Change Management Training
Change management training needs to equip the individuals with knowledge and skills to overcome the common causes of failure. These are not rocket science, and even a basic understanding of their importance could pay significant dividends. The common causes of failure include:
Lacking a clear vision and starting the change initiative before there is clarity on what is required.
Lack of clarity further resulting in underestimating the scope and not addressing the full impact the initiative may have.
Not recognising the importance of key stakeholders.
These causes are often due to poor communication, which then leads to a lack of buy-in from many employees who simply don’t feel engaged.
Often internal teams are required to work on a shoestring with insufficient resources, whether people, time or money. The change programme then takes longer, and the organisation suffers from inertia and indeed active resistance to what is going on, as staff cannot see the benefits at the end of an increasingly long tunnel.
Probably the biggest challenge to overcome is emotional. As the change programme starts to roll out, feelings of anxiety, fear and individual job insecurity significantly increase the resistance to change.
Investing in change management training and development will help to overcome most of these issues.
Effective Change Management fosters a culture of collaboration, resilience, and flexibility helping staff embrace a future view of the organisation rather than fear it. Within this positive atmosphere, change can be implemented consistently and efficiently, and the change teams can help communicate and reinforce new teams across the organisation.
Ultimately, an investment in change management should lead to higher employee morale, improved overall performance and better collaboration and critically, a more flexible and confident workforce.
APMG offers a range of Change Management certifications through a network of quality training providers. When we recently surveyed those who had completed our aptly named Change Management Foundation, respondents noted this lift in confidence the training provided them:
97% said that the training experience had given them more confidence when managing change.
94% stated that the training equipped them with skills and knowledge they could apply immediately.
98% of respondents said the Change Management training and certification had made them a better Change Manager.
What is not to like about that?
Measuring the Impact of Change Management in your organisation
The positive nature of change, and therefore the benefit of the training is demonstrated through factors such as:
Employee feedback forms.
Performance metrics that consider productivity and performance before and after a team have been trained.
Engagement levels throughout the organisation by measuring employee morale and through feedback surveys.
If the change is focused on one department or one activity, then it is possible to consider the return on investment through increased productivity or financial benefit. Considering that change initiatives involve evolving, strengthening and developing the culture as well as introducing new tools, techniques and technology, true success cannot be measured without taking everything into account.
Summary
By training internal change teams and giving them the appropriate resources and the time to develop and execute the change initiatives, organisations can reduce the failure rate of change initiatives and ultimately demonstrate a positive return on investment.
Find out more about APMG International Change Management Foundation and Practitioner Certification.
Richard Pharro, CEO, APMG
Richard is the founder and CEO of APMG, one of the few privately owned international accreditation and certification bodies. Started in 1993, APMG has expanded its portfolio to nearly 100 schemes across the management spectrum on behalf of many National and International organisations and has representation in 14 countries.
Richard is a Chartered Director and Civil Engineer who, in his early career, worked on projects in Europe and the Middle East.
Richard believes APMG’s success is due to the way everyone within the business builds strong relationships with the people and organisations with whom APMG works.
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