Allen Woo discusses the integration of Change Management at the individual and organizational level

Organizations continually introduce changes in response to internal and external stimuli. Some of these changes focus on processes, some on technologies, and some on the structure of the organization. Allen Woo, a business management specialist, discusses in depth the integration of Change Management at the individual and organizational levels.

No matter what type of change, each one requires that the organization move from its Current State through a Transition State into a Future State. Organizations are made up people who must move from their current states to Future States.

Change Management is about helping organizations change. This means that people will accept and embrace change. Prosci’s Change Management method provides Change Management Practitioners the tools and processes to develop customized, targeted, and research-based Change Management strategies to achieve project results.

Unique integration of Change Management at both the organizational and individual levels leads to an outcome-oriented approach that meets all the needs of those affected by the change. Every affected employee must make the transition from their current state to their future state.

Woo explains that individual change is possible only if we understand how people make successful changes. People move through the process of change in a predictable manner, whether they are at work or in the community. The individual level of Change Management provides a framework that allows a person to make the transition.

In Prosci’s Change Management methodology, the ADKAR Model is used in a variety of ways. First of all, it helps people make sense of change. In addition, it guides organizational Change Management plans, measures the progress of a change, diagnoses gaps and develops corrective actions, enables managers and supervisors to lead change, and provides a common language for change throughout the organization.

“While change happens one person at a time, most projects and initiatives impact many people, and it is not feasible to take a one-person-at-a-time approach,” Woo explains. “Change Management at the organizational level describes the steps, activities, and tools that a Change Management project team can follow to enable individual changes on a broader scale. Prosci’s 3-phase process presents a research-based approach to creating a customized Change Management strategy and plans that influence individual change.”

An effectual Change Management method needs two components. It needs an individual-level Change Management model that describes how a person transitions through Change, and an organizational-level Change Management approach that describes the process and tools practitioners use.

The individual-level Change Management model provides an outcome-oriented approach to Change Management. The ADKAR Model describes what organizational-level Change Management efforts are intended to achieve.

Managing Change without both perspectives is ineffective. Without a Change Management model at the individual level, your work will only focus on activities, such as sending a communiqué, without an orientation to the desired outcome of those activities, such as building awareness of the need for Change.

Without a Change Management process at the organizational level, changes become unmanageable when they impact dozens, hundreds, or thousands of employees. The organizational-level Change Management framework guides Change Management work in a scalable and repeatable way.

The organizational-level Change Management process provides an activity-oriented approach and sets out the actions a practitioner should take for a project or initiative. Prosci’s 3-phase process describes what you will do to build the Change Management plans that ultimately influence the individual transitions required by your project. By aligning what you are trying to achieve with what you are doing, you can ensure that Change Management contributes to more successful organizational and project outcomes.