Successful change happens by design

Have you ever asked these questions when leading change?

• Our change management process says I need change a management strategy. How do I create a useful change management strategy?
• Our change management process says I need a communication plan. How do I create a useful communication plan?
• How do I uncover if people will resist the change prior to implementation and why?
• What can I do to mitigate resistance to the change?
• The executive sponsor is not engaged. What should I do?
• Why are people resisting the change? How do I uncover the root causes?
• I’ve discovered my team is not motivated to support this change. Now what?
• How will I know if we are ready for this change?
• How do I uncover the barriers to change (personal, social/cultural, and structural)?
• How do I empower employees to participate and support the change?
• How do I engage employees in the change?
• Kotter’s eight-stage change process says I need to “empower people to effect change” by aligning structures and systems (HR systems, performance appraisal, compensation, rewards, etc.). How do I do that?

Understanding HOW to design change is critical to realizing successful change. Where conventional change management processes fall short  is the how. If you, as a change leader, do not have a problem solving approach to address HOW to design change, you are left with with surface level change management best practices that do little to render results. This seems obvious, doesn’t it? It seems really clear that everyone with a change management checklist should have a problem solving methodology to go deep and help you figure out how to design change. Yet most change management training misses the need to design change. This is where design thinking comes in. Design thinking is a human centered approach to problem solving and it is used to tackle a whole range of creative and business issues. Design thinking is way to move forward intentionally. Successful change happens by design.