Change Management: One Size Fits All?

Choosing a t-shirt at the night market is easy.  Everything is free size.  Choosing the right change management strategy for your organization is not so easy.  One-size-fits-all won’t work.  The strategy you choose needs to suit the unique characteristics of the change you’re introducing and the needs of your organization.
 
Three different strategies you can choose from to implement change are persuasion, adaptation and coercion.  Persuasion means providing your staff with lots of information, explaining the benefits of the change and providing incentives for improved performance.  Adaptation means making incremental changes, redeveloping your processes slowly and retraining your staff so that they gradually accept the new status quo.  Coercion means exercising your authority and making unilateral decisions for change, imposing sanctions and eventually expecting compliance.

Although each of these strategies may be implemented in various degrees, choosing which one to use will depend largely on five different characteristics of your organization.  The first is the degree of resistance.  Weak resistance may allow for adaptation.  Strong resistance, on the other hand may call for strong persuasion or coercion, depending on what your employees best respond to.

The second characteristic to consider is the size of the group affected by the change.  Larger groups will call for a greater mix of the three strategies.  Persuasive incentives may need to be combined at times with a bit of enforcement.

The time frame is your third characteristic.  If you have a longer time frame in which to introduce the change, adaptation will work well.  A shorter time frame, however, means less time to plan.  Coercion may be necessary to implement the change in the short run and you can hope for adaptation in the long run.

Your fourth consideration is the level of expertise within your organization.  Greater expertise in change management and in the areas affected will allow for a greater mix of persuasion and adaptation.  Less expertise, however, may call for coercion to be thrown into the mix.

Your final consideration concerns levels of dependency.  If your organization is more dependent on its people, management power is weaker and persuasion will be more effective.  If the people are more dependent on the organization, however, people power is weaker and coercion may be more effective.

Every change management initiative is unique and the impact of each change on your organization may vary.  Ensuring that the change management strategy you choose fits the characteristics of your organization can make the transition smoother.