Change Management

Your organization just introduced its own generative AI chatbot for answering common questions and troubleshooting at work. You’re excited that the company is investing in new tools to speed up your workflow, but a few of your colleagues aren’t as keen. Some are confused by the tech, which was rolled out without much explanation or demonstration of its value. Others don’t trust AI at all, refusing to try it out. These moments of friction are exactly what change management aims to smooth out.

Change management is a structured process of implementing change designed to prepare members of an organization for transition and address the inevitable tensions that arise.1 It can be used to address adjustments in a variety of aspects at work, like the introduction of new tools or strategies, changes in organizational structure, or a shift in the overall culture. Crucially, change management is more complex than making the change itself, further considering how people adapt to the change and ensuring it aligns with organizational goals.² In other words, managing change at an organization is just as much about planning for human psychology as it is about planning for adaptation.

Change management is more than just overseeing a transition; it is fundamentally about guiding people through uncertainty and ambiguity. There are two scales at which organizational change might occur:³

• Adaptive changes: The small, iterative changes that organizations implement for needs that develop over time. For example, hiring a new team member to decrease your team’s workload.
• Transformational changes: The bigger, broader scope of adaptive changes, including organization-wide shifts in mission, strategy, and processes. For example, the new chatbot that your company has developed is a part of their initiative to enhance the efficiency of their workforce with AI.

Regardless of how big or small a change is, effective change management is an important aspect of any organization today, helping leaders and employees pivot in an ever-evolving world. The hard part isn’t recognizing the changes that should be made, it’s being proactive instead of reactive when implementing change management strategies. It starts with following the right steps to avoid the reactive, resistant pathway to change.

Steps and qualities for positive, effective change management

There are five key stages that are common ways to navigate change management: discovery, preparation, implementation, reinforcement, and analysis: ^{1, 3}

Change management isn’t just a series of steps; there are other important qualities that are essential to ensure a positive culture of change. In their absence, the risks of reactance to change and lack of employee and leadership buy-in may persist. Three key qualities of a positive change culture are: communication, participation, and recognition:¹

In the absence of these characteristics, organizations run the risk of halfhearted, top-down-focused changes that don’t go over well for the day-to-day employee. What may be most important for effective change management is ensuring that those impacted by change are actively involved in the process. Research shows that employees are more likely to get on board with a transformation when they’ve had a stake in its development. This is reminiscent of the IKEA effect: when we build something ourselves, including solutions, we feel better about the final product.⁴ By making changes both understandable and co-owned, we make them more human—and more likely to stick.