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Change management

Innovation Management and Change Management

Traditionally, the world of innovation management and change management have followed different paths. This is due in part to the fact that research and development specialists, who typically have scientific and technical backgrounds and receive their training at universities, tend to focus on innovation management. Meanwhile, change management has traditionally been the domain of management consultants or professors, who acquire their skills through university courses or post-degree training programs, often in Business Schools, to support Human Resources departments. Although this approach is common in many organizations, it is only recently that change management has been recognized as a relevant issue in Masters in Public Policy and Masters in Public Administration programs.

At present, approaches to innovation as outlined in the OECD Oslo Manual rev5. 2018 include organizational innovations such as change management, in addition to innovations in products, processes and services. In this sense qualitative studies such as the OECD, 2015b's report suggest that data collection should focus on digital competences of organizations, as this is a key component of their innovation capabilities.

Approach

Change Management

The Digital Journey implies a holistic effort to rethink and transform the core processes of government beyond the traditional digitization efforts. It evolves along a continuum from the use of new working methods and relations with the citizens, to changes in IT contracting practices and organizational change initiatives that involve the whole organization's ecosystem.

Definition of Change Management

Change management can be defined as the methods and manners in which an organization describes and implements change within both its internal and external processes. It encompasses not only the technical aspects but also the human side of change.

In this sense, change management is not only a reactive tool for managing resistance against change; it is most effective as a tool for engaging and involving stakeholders, particularly employees, in the change process.

Managing change can be challenging, and part of the problem is that there is little consensus on which factors have the greatest influence on transformation initiatives.

There are 3 Categories of change. These include:

Incremental
Transitional
Transformative

The 3 destinataires/recipients of the change are:

Individuals
Teams
Organizations

Barriers to change: soft and hard factors

Over the past few years, change management specialists have increasingly prioritized soft issues like culture, communication, leadership, and motivation. While these elements are undoubtedly critical for success, managing them alone may not suffice for the successful implementation of transformative projects, especially those required in the context of digitalization. The barriers to change management can be grouped as follows:

Factors

Description

Sound research indicates that change projects fail to gain traction when organizations overlook the hard factors. This implies that in parallel with the soft elements, the organizations must pay attention to the hard issues too.

Anticipating common barriers within government bureaucracies prior to deploying digital transformation is critical to ensuring that stakeholders involved in the change are equipped with the necessary digital skills to overcome these obstacles.

Globally, there are common barriers that hinder change implementation, whether digital or non-digital, within organizations, particularly in government agencies. These barriers can be attributed to both soft and hard factors:

Resistance to change in the digital era is a combination of both timeless causes and new challenges that are specific to modern technologies. The introduction of digital era change to governments has occurred through mechanisms that were established well before the digital revolution took place.

In order to deliver successful digital era public services, it is crucial for public servants to overcome these barriers that hinder progress. To achieve this, existing solutions can be utilized or new ones can be created to help overcome these obstacles in a government context.

Models

Change models and digital change

At a conceptual level there is little that is truly new about how governments adopt digital change, as compared with other kinds of change. Various theoretical models have been developed to understand different types of change, from Kurt Lewin's change model (1947) through to Mark Moore's strategic triangle (1995) and John Kotter's (1995) model. The study of change management began between 1900 to 1945, and from 1945 to 1990, studies improved to understand the mechanisms associated with change. Between 1990 and 2000 change management was established as an academic discipline. This discipline progressed to deepening and modelling concepts and tools from 2000 to 2010, and currently, the focus is on improving the internal capacities of individuals, teams and organizations.

Numerous studies have examined attempts to introduce digital era change in governments around the world. As of today, there are powerful tools that can be deployed as an attempt to overcome the range of barriers to change. However, the effective use of these tools necessitates competencies for the digital team, especially for those in managerial, innovation, and change management roles.

There is no universal model for implementing significant digital change in governments. Even though there are competing ideas about 'what matters most,' we are still away from having clarity on the 'winners.' Nonetheless, some generalizable insights such as geographic, cultural, or sectorial interests, can always be applied in similar contexts.

Digital era government is not just about developing new practices and capabilities. It involves a larger question of whether new practices and technologies will lead to a rethinking of how government institutions are structured and managed. The theories of change towards a 'digital government as a platform' approach are relevant to the digital transformation that governments seek to implement, and this approach is an integral part of the digitization journey.

Models of strategic change management

Various theories have been developed regarding change management, including those proposed by Kotter, Prosci, and Lewis, among others. These theories have been instrumental in providing a comprehensive understanding of the nature of change and in enabling organizations to manage change effectively without disrupting their operations. They help organizations identify the need for change and assess the driving factors behind it.

Lewin's program for planned change and improved performance involves a three-phase process of behavior modification.

The framework proposes that organizations and their routines need to be "unfrozen" in the first phase, which involves reducing the forces that maintain the behavior in its present form and recognizing the need for change and improvement.

The second phase, Movement, entails the development of new attitudes or behavior and the implementation of change. However, there may be restraining forces that work against the driving forces for change.

In the final phase, after the change process has been implemented, the new routines and procedures are frozen again, ideally stabilizing the change at the new level and reinforcing it (Hardy, 1996).

The second change framework refers to the three phases of change (prepare, manage and reinforce change). This framework is closely aligned with the previous framework and is oftentimes used in practice:

Kotter’s research presented a novel approach to change management. He suggested that organizations should create a new culture where managers view change as an opportunity and modify their business systems to meet continuously emerging conditions (Hussey, D.E. (2000). How to Manage Organisational Change (Vol. 28). Kogan Page Publishers: London).

The following eight steps in the change process are his contribution.

Establishing a sense of urgency
Forming a powerful guiding coalition
Creating a vision
Communicating the vision
Empowering others to act on the vision
Planning and creating short term wins
Consolidating improvements and producing still more change
Institutionalizing new approaches

Effective change management demands five key goals to form the basic ADKAR model:

Awareness of the need to change
Desire to participate and support the change
Knowledge of how to change (and what change looks like)
Ability to implement the change on a day-to-day basis
Reinforcement to keep the change in place (Hiatt 2003)

5 tenets emerge from the Prosci´s ADKAR model and assessment tools:

Tenet 1: We change for a reason
Tenet 2: Organizational change requires individual change
Tenet 3: Organizational outcomes are the collective result of individual change
Tenet 4: Change management is an enabling framework for managing the people side of change
Tenet 5: We apply change management to realize the benefits and desired outcomes of change

As practical result, our GovStack model approach to Change Management includes 6 key stages:

Set goals
Make a diagnosis
Identify profiles
Defining the strategy
Driving the change
Consolidate change

In practice

There are some basic questions about Change management which emerge in practice from the referred models in the previous section:

Change Management Questions

Do change management right the first time (or at least try to do)

Although resistance is a normal human response to change, we should avoid or mitigate a significant amount of resistance by applying effective from the start of a project or initiative.

Participants in indicated that 47% of the employee resistance they encountered could have been avoided by implementing effective change management practices and principles. The moral here is: If you do adopt a Change Management Action Plan right the first time, you can from occurring.

Expect resistance to change (at all the levels and through all the process until full completion of the targeted phase)

Actions for addressing and mitigating resistance include:

Actions for addressing and mitigating resistance include
Utilizing a structured change management approach from the design of the project
Engaging senior leaders as of the change
Recruiting support from people managers as advocates for the change
Communicating the need for change, its impacts on individuals, and the benefits to employees

Address resistance formally (both directly and indirectly)

Sources of resistance include:

Employees who are deeply invested in the current way of doing work
Individuals who designed the current way of doing work that will be modified
Employees who anticipate an increase in their workload as a result of the change
Individuals who advocated a particular alternative that was not selected, (for instance, they preferred Option B, but Option A was selected)
Individuals who have been very successful and rewarded in the current way of doing work

In the case of Public Administrations, these stakeholder groups are particularly relevant and may present potential sources of resistance. Therefore, it is important to proactively address them throughout the project lifecycle by implementing targeted tactics to mitigate these resistance.

Identify the root causes of resistance (and prioritise the actions)

In the context of organizational change, it appears that among several root causes for resistance, the following factors play a significant role:

Lack of awareness of why the change was necessary
Concerns about the impact of the change on current job role and responsibilities
Fear based on past experiences of failed changes, leading to uncertainty about the outcome of the current change
Lack of visible support from and trust in management or leadership
Lack of inclusion in the change process

Engage the “right” resistance managers and reinforce positively and proactively team building (both at the elaboration and the implementation phases of the Change Management Action Plan)

Managers have five unique and important during times of change:

Communicator
Liaison – project team
Advocate support for the change
Resistance Manager –mitigate resistance to the change
Coach – supporting employees through the change process

Ensure the appropriate management and leadership (is not the same)

Basically, leadership refers to the influence and position of the individual as a leader within his group or team. A successful leader is distinguished by their ability to inspire and lead their team to achieve common goals. The definition of leadership involves qualities such as self-confidence, exemplarity, open-mind and the ability to manage challenges and crises within the organisation.

There are 11 types of leadership commonly accepted for classification:

Authoritarian (or autocratic)
Participatory (or democratic)
Laissez-faire (or delegative)
Visionary
Coaching-Based
Affiliative (or collaborative)
Democratic (but also very limited by the timing) leadership
Lead
Directive
Transformational leadership
Transactional Leadership

Take care about the motivation of the stakeholder

While no single theory can fully explain human motivation, various theoretical explanations serve as the foundation for developing approaches and techniques to enhance motivation in different areas of human endeavor.

There are 4 Different types of motivation

The of goal setting differentiates between four types of motivation (Sheldon & Elliot, 1999). These are:

External motivation
Introjected motivation
Identified motivation
Intrinsic motivation

Content Theories of Motivation

Are mainly focused on what motivates people and addressed specific factors like individual needs and goals

Maslow’s theory of the hierarchy of needs
Alderfer’s ERG theory
McClelland’s achievement motivation theory
Herzberg’s two-factor theory

In this sense, human behavior plays a significant role in both the impact of and response to Change Management.

Change Management Tools

Operational and practical tools are well known and usually used by the practitioners of Change Management, complementing those traditional of Project Management. In many cases they are based in several of the models and methodologies already mentioned.

Some toolkits are better suited to or overseeing a digital transformation initiative or portfolio while other toolkits are better suited to doing the tactical digital transformation work.

Some toolkits touch on skills and behaviours important for digital transformations. Skills and team formation is important, so browse toolkits that reference or .

Main tools used in Change Management:

It schematically represents the different stages intrinsic to any change that any individual experiences before accepting the new situation and living it fully: shock/denial, anger/fear, sadness/depression, the search for meaning and serenity.

Implemented by Kurt Lewin, this matrix makes it possible to analyze the different forces - positive AND negative - in the face of a blockage in order to allow it to be unblocked: rectify the situation, reconsider - even sometimes abandon - an overambitious idea/project proving far too complex to implement in view of the reluctance thus listed:

Popularized by Richard Beckhard and Reuben T. Harris, this tool makes it possible to conduct a precise analysis of a given situation by studying the different conditions and possibilities relating to any transformation.

This is a very interesting tool for identifying and measuring the impacts that a change can have at all levels of the company.

This tool makes it possible to analyse and evaluate the organizational and environmental dimensions necessary for successful change: identify the cause and effect links between the different dimensions and allows to make adjustments aiming to improving performance.

This tool allows the collective visualization, analysis and exploration of the direct and indirect consequences of a change, event, problem or even a tendency.

Individual transition behaviour during the change process

The tool to measure the level of employee commitment to change

Skills & competences

As detailed in the GovStack Competence Building Module, the successful implementation of the GovStack Approach requires countries to consider a long-term strategy that incorporates the necessary academic support that is needed to achieve their digitalization goals.

The latest publication of DigComp 2.2, presents the consolidated framework of digital competencies used in Europe, including examples of knowledge, skills and attitudes (Dimension 4) as well as use cases (Dimension 5) that address Change Management. These are equivalent to e-CF E7 Business Change Management L.4-5, and (almost generalised) Change support.

CEN/CENELC e-Competences Framework