change management – Resource Library

One of the new roads I drive every day to and from work had been only partially finished for almost a year. There was a good-sized bump in one place. It became a habit to slow down every time I came to the bump. The road is now finished and the bump is gone, but I catch myself applying the brakes even though there is no need to do it anymore. Why does this happen?

We all make assumptions as we go about our daily life, with a good portion of them being made while at work. Many of these assumptions are made without knowing it or thinking about it.

Assumptions are usually based on something we have learned previously and do not question. As part of our belief system, assumptions help us form judgments, make meaning, and draw conclusions about what is happening and what others are thinking. When information is missing, they help us complete our own story.

For complex organizations like Federal agencies, undergoing change can be very difficult. As the recent report by Management Concepts and Human Capital Media, “Successful Change Management Practices in the Public Sector” found, Federal agencies have a mixed record of achievement as they struggle to deal with changes arising from organizational realignment, new technology implementation, and changes in the Federal workforce. Despite this mixed record, the major elements of a successful change management are now well understood, and require a comprehensive approach that includes having a vision of where the organization wants to go, making sure individuals are skilled in change management, providing sufficient resources to support change management activities, as well as creating and sticking to a detailed change action plan.

One of the contributing factors to project and program failures within public organizations is the lack of organizational change management planning. This is well documented in Management Concepts recent report, “Successful Change Management Practices in the Public Sector.”

Succession planning is becoming a valuable strategy for organizations to undertake when looking to minimize the impact of changes on its workforce. Although still not widely utilized across Federal agencies, it is becoming recognized as an important talent management and change management strategy for retaining leaders at all levels and thus reducing disruptions caused by continual turnover. Here are two reasons this rings true:

The quest to improve management of change in public sector agencies is by no means a new one. In 2006, Frank Ostroff, writing in the Harvard Business Review comments, that “the greatest challenge in bringing about successful change and significant, sustained performance improvement in the public sphere is not so much identifying solutions, which are mostly straightforward, as working around the unique obstacles” that are found in the public sector organizations.

All leaders and managers are motivated to improve their skillset for many reasons; however, they are generally motivated by the opportunity to accomplish challenging goals and objects (Achievement), influence and control others (Power), and being able to work with others (Affiliation).

Tag: change management