Who holds the reins of your organisational change journey?

The last 18 years I have spent leading and implementing change have shown me that the demand for change competence is on the increase. This has been further accelerated by the effects of COVID 19. As we near the end of 2023, this demand is still rising as organisations look to grow their change-readiness and resilience. In fact, research just published by Gartner finds, that HR leaders point to Change Management as a key priority for 2024 and over 80% of HR leaders find their organisation’s leaders lack this skill.

Interestingly, this rise in demand does not mean that in-house leadership nor in-house talent development are now better equipped to focus on building the necessary change competence. This opposite is quite true for most organisations.

Instead of turning change leadership into an integrated skill set across the board, organisations still appear to either outsource change competence or build it internally as siloed, project-based units.

The result is one of the following:

1. The responsibility of the change journey is passed on to external advisors.

2. Separated project-based change competences are not shared nor applied across the organisation.

Neither scenario is ideal. In the first one, organisations are always left dependent on external help, meaning that they cannot react as quickly as they would to change if they had competent people onboard already who could successfully initiate and lead change journeys.

In the second, the change competences are isolated. Teams from one area of the company may not know another team or leader is competent in change leadership. Very often these people have gained competences in a very project-specific manner and may not be trained in how to apply them to other business cases.

Why should organisations build change competence as part of their core leadership skill set?

The ability to successfully lead and enable change is crucial for all organisations. While this has always been the case, a combination of the pandemic, rapid digitalisation and our shifting geo-political environment has resulted in change happening much faster. This requires us all, whether employees or leaders, to be able to quickly adjust to change, to thrive in an ever-changing environment and, especially for leaders, to communicate effectively and visualise change and why it is happening. Post-pandemic, we live in an age where markets are even more competitive, and organisations are working hard to keep up with a world that has experienced a fundamental societal shift in how we think about work. We want work-life balance, and we want to do what we love and are good at, at a location of our choice. Flexibility is currently one of the biggest asks in recruitment.

Companies and institutions are looking at how they are designed and making amendments to cater to a workforce that is more vocal about its values and needs. Organisations are also addressing operational, logistical and knowledge gaps they identified during the pandemic with the aim of becoming stronger and able to weather future storms. The use of technology in responding to this need is accelerating transformation, and it isn´t taking place in only one country, but across the world due to our interconnectivity.

In my experience, while each organisational change has its own DNA, the underlying competencies needed to successfully lead and implement change are the same. If passed along correctly, they can be used repeatedly to bring about change. In other words, it is the organisation's ability to lead and implement lasting change that will decide whether they are successful in harvesting long-term value or not.

What happens to external advisors and the role they play in enabling strategic organisational change?

External advisors have an important role to play – but not as traditional drivers of change projects. The role of the external advisor is now:

1. To facilitate the change journey

2. To recommend the best approach based on the organisation, research, data and pragmatism

3. To build lasting change competence

While we support scoping and implementation, we must also enable employee development and equip leaders for change processes ahead.

This way, we can combine the best of both worlds: in-house ownership, will and ability to lead the change and experience, best practices and competence to ensure change is successful.

In the end, the reins of your organisational change remain firmly in your hands but external advisors are on hand to enable not only successful change but more importantly sustainable change.

Resources: © 2023 Gartner, Inc., Top 5 priorities for HR Leaders in 2024 - Actionable insights to tackle challenges and plan for success.