Change can be hard, but that’s not a good enough excuse to avoid it. Whether businesses embrace it or not, organizational change management (OCM) is a crucial part of any successful enterprise.

Jomarie Bliss has spent much of her career helping large organizations understand and successfully implement change. She’s held project management roles at GE, Bank of Montreal and now Newell Brands, in addition to serving as an adjunct faculty member at the Daniels College of Business.

“Change is an important part of really every project manager’s set of activities that they have to do,” she said. “If they’re not doing change management, I’m not sure they’re really doing project management.”

In this story, Bliss explores what exactly organizational change management is, how to implement it and what to avoid.

What is Organizational Change Management (OCM)?

Bliss looks at organizational change management in two settings, the business world and the academic world. She blends both to define what it is.

“At its essence, it’s just a systematic way of viewing the change continuum. It includes considerations for the people, the processes, and the systems of an organization,” she said. “Simply, it’s a series of activities that together support the people and an organization through change.”

You might undergo OCM when reorganizing a division of your business or introducing a new enterprise software program. In either case, Bliss said, you need to prepare for the change before embarking on it.

“Every organization should consider change management because it impacts people, systems and processes,” she said.

The Key Principles of Organizational Change Management

Knowing where to begin when approaching organizational change management is a large part of the challenge. Before you even start down that road, Bliss recommends that leaders define their vision and clearly state what they’re hoping to achieve from this change. This is the roadmap that you’ll return to should your change process get rocky.

“You need to have an understanding of what you’re doing, and you need to have your reasoning upfront,” she said. “Why are we doing this?”

There are other questions she recommends leaders ask themselves:

• Do we buy into this?
• Do we believe that it will help make the organization successful based on the stated strategy?
• Do I as an employee or a leader know what my goal is?
• Do I know what the next steps are?
• How am I going to do the practical things like change my manufacturing site, change over my software or reorganize my offices?
• How have I documented how the change is going to be done?

By answering these questions, leaders should be able to identify their goal, clearly state their vision and create a plan for communicating it within their organization.

“Organizational change management includes setting the foundation from which you develop a shared need. You mobilize commitment based on a vision,” Bliss said.

Overview of Popular OCM Frameworks and Models

Frameworks are great places to start your change journey, as they provide a helpful guide on what to do and when to do it. Whether you choose Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model or the ADKAR Model, or one of the many other change frameworks, lean into the lessons that apply most to your business.

Daniels frequently teaches Kotter’s change model in its courses. His eight steps to approaching change are:

• Establishing a Sense of Urgency
• Creating the Guiding Coalition
• Developing a Vision and Strategy
• Communicating the Change Vision
• Empowering Broad-Based Action
• Generating Short-Term Wins
• Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change
• Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture

Across each of these steps, Kotter shares the importance of communication across all levels of the organization. He adds that leaders need to back up their words.

“Nothing undermines change more than behavior by important individuals that is inconsistent with the verbal communication,” Kotter said in his book Leading Change.

Best Practices for Effective OCM Implementation

While a framework serves as a good starting place for OCM, implementation shouldn’t follow a strict formula. Rather, it should adapt to the changing needs of your business.

“Think of a change management plan as a living and breathing flexible series of activities that you work on with key leaders and key employees,” Bliss said. “You keep it alive the whole time as you’re working through your strategy to get to your end goal.”

The key to managing successful change is monitoring progress and changing things on the fly. Maybe you learned something new, maybe the new software you implemented is working better than anticipated. These are all things that need to be considered and adjusted for, Bliss said.

If you can build a coalition of supporters early, that helps drive successful change. Engage your employees and make them part of your process.

“People come to work and they want to do a great job. They want to have their voice heard and they do want to support change if they understand it and the strategy behind it.”

Lastly, change is never really done. Continuous process improvement means that you’re always adjusting, reviewing and benchmarking, Bliss said.

“Strong organizations should be primed for change and always considering business strategy. Then, they combine them for OCM,” she added. “You should always be saying, ‘how can I optimize my processes?’”

Common Challenges in Organizational Change Management

Celebrating success too early is one common mistake made with OCM, but Bliss said most mistakes are made at the start of the process. Poor communication and lackluster planning hamper effective change.

“It can be perilous,” Bliss said. “It can be problematic when, up front, there is not enough measured and careful thought and consideration put into the change.”

As someone who has led many changes, Bliss recommends coming to the table overprepared.

“There’s a reason why change management plans number in the dozens and dozens of pages, even for relatively mid-sized changes,” she said. “You’re trying to anticipate everything that might come up and you’re trying to pivot if something didn’t work out well.”

She creates spreadsheets of project plans, maps out touchpoints for all employees, schedules regular communications and stays nimble, should these plans need to be adjusted.

“If companies don’t consider all of these different pieces and they haven’t analyzed up front, ‘how ready are we for change?’ The change will not be as successful,” she said.

Recapping the Importance of OCM

With proper communication and planning, your organizational change management process can run smoothly. Above all else, change needs to start with a vision and mission.

“Create a shared need and vision, then mobilize and see your change through to the end,” Bliss said.

Students in both undergraduate and graduate courses at the Daniels College of Business are frequently taught the key tenets of organizational change management and use case studies to analyze how others have done it. Faculty members like Bliss have spent years in the business world, leading and following change. They often share their most important lessons in organizational change management with their students, bringing the business world into the classroom.