Research from Statistics South Africa shows that South Africa is still facing a highly disruptive business environment, this will most likely result in increased organisational and financial distress.
These events will places companies under severe pressure, with many business executives unsure about their future and how to steer the business out of troubled waters.
Change management is often necessary to help companies address their organisational and financial distress. When approaching this, it is essential to break it down into small components.
What’s going wrong?
Research from Gartner reveals that most organisations have undergone five major changes within the past three years, with roughly 75% expecting to undertake more initiatives in the coming years. But in a troubling turn, that same research shows that only 34% of change initiatives are successful.
Approximately 63% of chief human resource officers are unhappy with the speed with which their organisations implement change. Further, some experts in the field proclaim that change management itself is broken, with more than 80% of businesses managing change from the top down. This old-school way of doing things used to work effectively when businesses had a straightforward, vertical structure.
But in today’s business landscape, structures are far more complex and employees have a more interconnected role. Breaking changes down into small steps increases your odds of success and makes it easier to drive lasting change.
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Why Take Small Steps?
The article adds that, for most people, lasting change doesn’t come in large leaps but in taking things one step at a time. Adopting a change management style that takes things step-by-step helps better equip, prepare, and support everyone as they get used to new ways of doing things. Making small, intentional changes consistently is the best way to create profound and lasting change because each small change has a compounding effect over time.
Dubbed “microchange management” by Infosys, a digital services and consulting company that used the approach during its Live Enterprise initiative. Over the course of three years, microchange management helped the company go digitally native while enhancing its resiliency and improving the employee experience. The approach is firmly rooted in behavioural theory and techniques that motivate people, giving it a much more personal feeling that you can tailor to suit your organisation best.
Three Tips to Make It Easier
The article points out that change management describes all the company’s methods to implement change. There’s a lot to be done. While roughly 66% of changes aren’t rousing successes, the failure is typically caused by human error. By changing your approach, you increase the chances that your change(s) will succeed. These three tips make microchange management manageable:
Break Big Changes Into Small Parts
Change can’t happen overnight, especially if you want it to stick. Making large-scale transformations can be overwhelming. By switching to a micro way of thinking, you can break that large change into small initiatives, each with its own objective and outcome. You can assign small teams to each step, choosing team members with the talent and diverse skills best suited to that small initiative.
Make Small Changes to Routines to Create Behavioral Change
The article adds that when you’ve been doing any activity for a while, you get used to the routine of it. Your employees are no different. Having to change their routines and habits and being shoved outside of their comfort zone can create resistance that slows and derails the progress you’re trying to make. Instead of asking people to make a seismic shift, break down the behaviour you want to change by making tiny tweaks. To be effective, try using suggestions and cues combined with recognition and rewards to drive small changes in habits and routines. Each small change is a positive step toward making the behavioural shift you aim for while minimising risk and resistance.
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Keep Doing These Three Things: Measuring, Learning and Evolving
In business, it’s important to continually evaluate what you’re doing, learn how to do things better, and evolve to best suit modern needs. Why should your change management initiatives be any different? As you roll out each small step, assess how it’s progressing. Are you meeting the desired outcomes? If not, look at the data and correct the course you’re on through every iteration of the deployment of your steps.
Pilot projects
The article points out pilot projects are a great example of how these three things can drive success. Pilots should be made up of around 2.5% of the population of users who will ultimately use that process. You can use what you learn during the pilot to refine your approach before rolling it out. As you roll it out, continual measurement, learning, and course correction will help ensure you assimilate it into the entire organisation.
The pandemic has underscored the importance of agility for businesses of all types and sizes. Agility is also helpful in change management. While every business has its own unique vision and path to fulfilling that vision, incorporating change is almost always a must. By breaking change into small steps, you weave agility into each part of your aim and decrease the resistance you’re likely to meet along the way.
Conclusion
Many cases of business under performance and consequent financial distress can be resolved by companies sitting down and looking at how they can address the root causes of distress within their business to effect change. This approach empowers businesses to take control of their situation and make meaningful changes.
Operational restructuring is a key service that ReVive offers its clients. Visit our website at www.reviveadvisory.com to book your consultation today.
