How to Ensure Organisational Success with Enterprise Change Management

The need to effectively manage the people side of change in an organisation is increasingly recognised across all industry sectors.  The growth in the implementation of change management best practices is beginning to challenge existing processes and redefine the norm. But is this enough to ensure organisational success?

Organisations have begun to take the next steps; moving away from a single project model and towards universal change capabilities across an organisation – enterprise change management or ECM. If we consider the benefits that can be reaped from a single project delivered using change management best practices, these benefits can be multiplied across the organisation as a whole. Additionally, it can allow for the business to ensure that any negative effects are recognised and overcome, and not replicated in other areas. Most importantly, organisations with lean, mature practices are more likely to meet the objectives of each project, finish on schedule and within budget:

The driving force behind taking this next step may vary, but the Prosci methodology identifies 5 of the main reasons organisations are motivated to cultivate a transformation in the ways that they view and react to change:

• To develop and maintain a competitive advantage
• The consequences of a previously failed change
• To ensure the success of an upcoming change
• To replicate the successes achieved in a singular project across the whole of an organisation
• The need to develop the individual competency skill set of the leaders, managers and supervisors throughout the organisation

How Enterprise Change Management Differs

In essence change management involves:

1. understanding the change that is being implemented
2. analysing the people that will be impacted by the change and
3. creating the plans and actions that will help drive the successful implementation of the change from the people perspective (such as communications, training and resistance management)

Enterprise change management relates to ensuring that an organisation builds change management competencies across the entire organisation, and can replicate effective change management practices across all projects and measures of change. The three main areas of focus are:

1. A common set of processes and tools for managing change
2. A leadership competency at all levels of the organisation, from supervisors to senior executives
3. A strategic capability that enables the organisation to be flexible, change ready and responsive to marketplace changes

Enterprise Change Management as a Mindset

Unfortunately, there is no magic wand that allows an organisation to develop this competency overnight. The institutionalisation of change management takes a concerted effort. It requires resources, budget, time and commitment. It requires treating and managing institutionalising change management as a project and as a change. The practices themselves are not enough; there must be a fundamental shift in organisational culture and charter to make great change management the norm.

For ECM to be deployed successfully we must first achieve a shift in mind set from applying change management capabilities to project X to embedding change management practices, processes, capabilities and competencies within a company. Employee engagement in change lies at the heart of this culture. 

To understand more about your organisation's change capabilities, we invite you to take advantage of a free consultation with CMC. This no-cost, two-hour consultation has been designed to allow you to develop an understanding of your organisation's maturity score across 5 key capability areas and allows you to understand how your organisation compares with both industry and regional peers.

Part of the Prosci Global Affiliate Network, and appointed as the Singapore Primary Affiliate for Prosci in 2015, CMC Partnership Asia a leading provider of the global market-leading Prosci Certification. We work with organisations and change professionals to assess their organisational change management maturity, to ensure the effective delivery of change projects in Singapore.