4 sure-fire ways to get change management resources into your organization.
Are you trying to justify getting change management resources into your organization? Proving ROI to your key stakeholders is vital to the success of the project – and in getting change management embedded in your organization. We’ve all been through changes that have not been successful and it’s usually because of lack of executive leadership, underestimating the extent of the change needed, and a shifting landscape of other changes hoodwinking the original change.
1. Speak their language. As the HR VP, you are most likely thinking about the ‘people’ side of the change, but your peers might not be. Link communication to adoption. Link adoption to efficiency. Link efficiency to cost savings. You all want the same thing – the change to realize the overall ROI of the initial investment. For example, in a system implementation, here’s a common ROI statement:
“While the new system will cost $8 million, it will result in over $100 million of benefit to the agency.” The ROI is simple, spend $8 million get $100 million in value. Seems like a good deal.
2. Embedding change management. Let’s talk about the cost of change management. For communications, training, engagement and facilitation, you’ll need some serious resources for the project – either internally or externally. In this example, change management activities might cost $1 million. Your ROI could sound like this:
“Without the funding to encourage usage and adoption of the new system, the agency will fail to realize the $100 million in benefit and will lose $10 million in sunk cost. The ROI here is that $1 million ensures $100 million in benefit”.
3. Get into the details. The more that people are affected by the change, the more uncertain is the ROI. If you’re asking people to change to a moderate or great extent, the probability of attaining that ROI is riskier. All the more reason to get change management integrated into the project from the beginning. Find a great process and a great partner to work through the details to be able to influence your decision makers.
4. Start small. Many of my clients ask for a half day workshop to get leaders into a room and start thinking about the change. Ask them to come with their concerns for the project and they will start to see the role change management will play.
