March 2008

Managing Change
Can you really teach change?

The news is replete with stories of companies struggling to adapt to rapidly changing markets, consumer tastes and competition. One would think that constantly dealing with a highly dynamic business reality, fueled by technological advancements, most organizations would have learned to adapt and evolve as their markets do. Yet, company after company continues to struggle with this critical issue linked to their survival.

"Real organizational innovation occurs on multiple levels, fueled by continous improvement in the face of change, and is institutionalized within its culture."

Additionally, change, adaptation and innovation initiatives are time-intensive and lets face it – hard work. Many employees perceive them more as an interruption rather than a genuine priority. With all of their other responsibilities, deadlines and goals that they need to complete or achieve, who has time to deal with these issues?

Finally, change requires many employees to leave their comfort zones. Adapting to change and innovation requires risk-taking, experimentation and failure. No one wants to get blamed if something doesn’t work, yet this is required if organizations are going to learn, evolve and grow.

What can heads of learning do to prepare their workforces to adequately handle these issues? Obviously singular training events such as eLearning and instructor-led classroom sessions are not the appropriate tools. It’s impossible to teach employees how to handle the process of change and innovation in these environments.

Experiential programs and action learning are more effective options. The goals of these programs is not to teach employees how to perform specific tasks, but to ingrain them with problem-solving proficiency so they know how to collect and analyze data and make the right decisions at the right time.

Employees must be provided with a risk-free and collaborative environment where they learn to be flexible, think outside of the box, and experiment with various solutions. Education is about practice and the only way to train employees in these skills is by giving them an environment where they can practice these skills and evaluate the results.

When employees continue to learn by doing, these skills and competencies become second nature and can be easily transferred to the workplace. They learn to ask questions, interact with others, handle conflict and become flexible in how they formulate solutions.

Once employees learn how to manage the process of change, they are more apt to implement strategies to continuously improve and innovate in the workplace. Change is addressed in small and more manageable chunks as the organization evolves. Employees learn to ask the right questions, focusing on the key areas, and formulating solutions while becoming strategic and innovative thinkers.

Real organizational innovation occurs on multiple levels, fueled by continuous improvement in the face of change, and is institutionalized within its culture. It is encouraged, recognized and rewarded. But it must start by providing opportunities for employees to practice the necessary skills before they apply them in the workplace. This is no different than placing pilots into a flight simulator.

They repeatedly face multiple and difficult situations and continuously practice how to manage and handle these circumstances until they are ingrained into their thinking. If they fail, they learn why. When a real problem occurs, they automatically know what to do because they practiced it before and they know what will work in that situation. Most importantly, they don’t practice in simulators only once, but are required to log numerous hours to polish and hone their skills.

Create your own change simulator that will enable employees to polish and hone their change management skills as they practice solving difficult problems and situations. When they encounter these issues in the workplace they will have the skills ingrained to successfully address them, which will pay dividends for your company in the long run.