Top 5 tips for building Change Capability

In the midst of the impacts of COVID-19, ‘Change’ has never been more relevant. As companies feel the squeeze of slashed budgets, recruitment freezes and scrutiny over spend, they face the prospect of continued change.‍

What is Change Capability?

The dilemma many businesses find themselves in is not being able to afford to hire a team of people but also knowing they need someone to help them manage the change within their organisation.

But what does ‘Change Capability’ really mean? To be capable and competent to change?

Yes and no.

When organisations talk about building Change Capability, they are referring to the ability to drive change to employees - using sets of tools, templates and having methodologies and/or change frameworks in place which they can draw upon.

Banks are known as having a higher level of ‘Change Maturity’ thus meaning they have sophisticated libraries of tools, templates and house a framework across business units and/or centrally.

This doesn’t mean that the change maturity cross pollinates all areas though. Some pockets of large organisations that would claim to be ‘Change Mature’ may be new to change perhaps because they haven’t had experience with managing projects or transformation previously. And this is why you’re hearing ‘Change Capability’ more frequently, it's because the presence of Transformation is more prevalent across industries nowadays.

Transformation is more prevalent nowadays because:

• New technologies continually emerge
• Mergers and acquisitions become commonplace
• Agile is less of a buzzword and more embedded into standard delivery styles      (hopefully in appropriate areas)
• Risk, remediation and regulation continue
• Automation, AI and data analytics are happening thus potentially impacting operating      models and staff

So, irrespective of the size, product or industry of the company, they’re all facing change and thinking about how best to manage it to minimise resistance and create harmony.

If you’re thinking of bringing in someone to help your company with Change Management then where should you start?

We asked 5 Change Leaders for their advice:

Their Top 5 Tips Revealed Exclusively

Steve Milnes

Head of Change Management at QBE with a career history spanning across Financial Services and the Telecom sector.

1. Drive Strategic Change Management – Too many organisations design a business strategy without truly considering the people. A strategy without tangible people based actions and outcomes can sometimes allow success to be determined by cost savings and/or technological delivery.

2. Engage Leadership – Education of senior leaders on Change Management and leading through Change is critical to building momentum and support. Development of a single view of change in any organisation is a great way to highlight the impact of project delivery amongst a range of other competing priorities in people’s daily lives. This can be overlooked by leaders who are focused on delivery over sustainability.

3. Build a clear change methodology or framework – Not for the reasons you may think…a methodology is not designed to control the output of skilled Change professionals with tools and templates. It should be used to:

· Educate the way Change is delivered in your organisation – within a PMO and the broader business

· Integrate Change Management plans with other relevant execution frameworks (Project Management including waterfall and agile, Business Analysis, Testing, etc.)

· Guide a new Change Manager on how to navigate Change in your organisation improving the speed to competency and ultimately the success of the respective project

4. Develop a presence outside of Projects – It is incumbent on Change professionals to impart knowledge beyond the project world. Get involved in all aspects of the business…ready leaders and individuals for change, make change a welcome part of every day, and be available for more than is required of you. Coach, mentor and volunteer for things that enhance the delivery of Change.

5. Welcome new ways – The traditional world of Change Management has changed. Advancements in supporting technologies for the way people absorb knowledge or are assisted in the way they change should be embraced. Seek information on how people learn and apply learning and build into Change planning and the determination of Change success measures.

Senior Manager, Business Readiness and Assurance at First State Super, ensuring that changes are delivered safely into the business, creating enduring value for its members.

Natalie de Carvalho

Senior Manager, Business Readiness and Assurance at First State Super, ensuring that changes are delivered safely into the business, creating enduring value for its members.

1. Speak to your network – Find organisations that either have a reputation for (or feel that they are) doing change management well and ask their leaders for their insights into their

what, why and how of change.

2. Get specific – Why should change management be a priority for your business now? What are the outcomes you’d like to achieve as a business? What are the current challenges you want to address or opportunities you want to capitalise on? Consider assessing your current level of change management maturity (the Prosci Change Maturity Model can be used for this) and agree as a leadership team what level of maturity you’d like to strive for, and by when.

3. Identify your sponsor(s) – Make sure at least one Executive is a strong advocate for change management and can talk to their reasons why.

4. Get started – Bring in a change practitioner(s) to support the planning, delivery and embedding of some significant changes; measure and share the results to demonstrate the value of change management. As Positivity Strategist Robyn Stratton-Berkessel writes: “small wins challenge the underlying beliefs and assumptions that people hold to be true about the current state”.

5. Be patient and persistent – It takes time to implement an organisational-wide change in approach. Celebrate wins, learn and adjust and set and measure new expectations regarding

the way changes are implemented across the business.

Senior Change Manager at AMP with a passion for assisting individuals and businesses through the change process successfully.

Dr. Liz Short

Senior Change Manager at AMP with a passion for assisting individuals and businesses through the change process successfully.

1. Be really clear about your expectations of change management and CM’s value proposition.

2. Create an integrated enterprise wide model.

3.Understand your company’s level of change maturity and be prepared to make some serious changes to achieve leading practice.

4. Identify the most appropriate business unit and reporting lines for the change management practice – understand the contribution of each of these options: centralised centre of excellence (within a PMO or similar central area), decentralised model (CMs sitting within each BU) or combination of the two.

5. Employ an experienced qualified change professional to establish the change capability and be prepared to pay appropriately for this expertise.

Head of Change Management, Group Business Improvement at Lendlease with over 20 years’ experience within the Banking & Financial Services industry.

Michelle Cock

Change Lead at Colonial First State with over 20 years’ experience within Construction & the Banking & Financial Services industry.

1. Invest time in understanding your potential customers' challenges and how they perceive change, its success to date, general understanding of change and why they feel it is difficult to embed; run customer insight sessions – two way communication focus.

2. Think about your organisation’s needs: Instead of moving straight into implementation of Prosci or any other preferred change framework, think about what your organisation needs and how you can make change an easy concept to grasp – the simplest of tools are always the best.

3. Spend time conducting a SWOT analysis across your organisation with the view to identifying those who are your advocates, antagonists and those who are completely ambivalent.

4. Invest in the design and socialisation of your Change Strategy, cost model etc, focused on support, guidance and value-add to the business.

5. Be clear on your teams change culture you are seeking when building and recruiting members of your team; experience, industry knowledge, behaviours and values and the importance of its alignment to your organisation.

Head of Organisational Change at Allianz Australia who partners with executives to design and deliver large scale transformation programmes that increase business efficiency, enhance employee engagement and deliver business value.

Adam Ryder

Head of Organisational Change at Allianz Australia who partners with executives to design and deliver large scale transformation programmes that increase business efficiency, enhance employee engagement and deliver business value.

1. Build a strong case for change. This might sound obvious, but without an imperative to do something differently, it is challenging to get the support that is required. For me, I was able to link the need to accelerate our change management maturity with the launch of our new corporate strategy. In doing this, I was able to highlight the risk to the strategy of not uplifting our change management maturity and capability.

2. Be respectful of what has been done in the past. Take a measured approach to proposing significant change, highlight what has worked well in the past and provide a clear rationale for why this will not be effective in the future. This is really a subset of point 1. Rather than tell stakeholders that how change was managed in the past was rubbish, I explained that our methodology was 'fit for purpose' at a point in time, but our requirements had shifted based on our new strategy, the size and complexity of projects, regulator expectations, and the desire to implement and embed sustainable change.

3. Identify the key players. You need the right people in your corner to get things done. Identify who your supporters are and also think about your detractors. Put a plan in place to ensure that the right amount of time is spent on engaging with people at the right time and in the right way. My focus has been to always have at least 2-3 senior executives who I know are supporters of what I'm trying to do. They buy-in to my vision for change management and will support my direction at the 'executive table'. It is equally important to know who doesn't buy-in. However, I don't fall into the trap of focusing all my effort on them. Get the balance right.

4. Demonstrate incremental progress. It has been important for me to show progress. While my vision might take a couple of years to realise, I can't wait until then to show value. My four pillar strategy has enabled me to chunk the work that I am doing and anchor each activity to a pillar. I have identified quick-wins and also made it clear that some actions will take longer to embed e.g. behavioural change and big shifts to ways of working.

5. Design a model that is 'user pays'. Put in time up front to design an operating model that

will work in the context of your organisation. Think about who needs support, how best to provide that support and who pays. My change practice is fully funded by the business projects that we support. This will ensure the ongoing sustainment and also makes commercial sense.

One challenge to be mindful of is that people/projects may opt out of using change management if they have to pay for it...It is therefore very important to demonstrate value!