The support mechanism to Change Management

If we were ask ourselves, "How receptive to change am I?", I would guess most people would have a puzzled look on their face and maybe start contemplating "Am I or aren't I?". Nevertheless, generally speaking, change is something human beings take time to adapt to. Whether it be in our personal lives or professional, it takes us all a while to get used to the change and accept it in our daily lives. Another thing we can agree on is that change is also inevitable. Occurrences happen in the course of nature which is out of our control. Yet all we can do is accept it and deal with it in the best possible manner.

In a recent survey of the members of the Association of Internal Management Consultants (AIMC), nearly 90% of these groups had change management as one of their key areas of practice, which has increased dramatically over the past five years. This brings me to my point that these internal consultants play an important supporting role to developing a planned approach to the human aspect of ‘change' in an organization. When I say managing change I mean implementing the necessary changes in a planned and systematic fashion.

Further more, the entire truth of the supporting role internal management consultants performs in implementing change management can be summed up in a three-fold manner: Educate about it, developing a strategy and enabling the other 'doers' of change management. First and foremost, to implement this successfully, internal consultants need to answer two vital questions for those they interact with: (a) What is it? And (b) Why is this important? While it is known to those who embrace it, this does not necessarily mean that the others I the organization have the same perspective on it. While some may have a good perception of it, others may not. That's where the job of the internal consultant comes into play; to ensure that everyone involved is on the same wavelength so the implementation process is smoother. In simple terms, the challenge lies in convincing everyone that change management are the tools, processes and practices for managing the people side of organizational change.

The second step is not easy either. This involves the actual development of the strategy and plans which are in sync with the overall business objectives, practices and values of the organization. But this is never done in isolation. Inputs from various functional areas of the organization such as from project teams, sponsors, managers, supervisors etc are taken into consideration before the actual plan is laid down. However, it is ultimately the Internal Consultant who captures and delivers the strategy and the subsequent plans. Last but not least, internal consultants hold a major responsibility in developing and implementing the change strategy but they also have the responsibility of blending in the number of other 'doers' who must be a part of the plan execution. Employees want to hear the reasons behind the changes from someone at the top and the person they report to as they would have more faith in them than anyone else. Not from the HR department, or a communications specialist, or the project leader or the change management consultant. In essence, these internal consultants need to enable the preferred senders (senior business leader and managers/supervisors) to deliver these messages. Hence an internal change management consultant plays a vital role in energizing, activating and enabling these different players in the organization towards adding complete value to the organization overall.