4 ways CIOs can lead change management now
These days, change is not novel. It is something that IT leaders have learned to embrace, accept, and even welcome, which has become particularly important over the past 14 months. We have had to be nimble and flexible in nearly every facet of our job and change management is no exception.
Leading change management requires a solid foundation before moving forward with a strategy and these most recent challenges have accentuated the need for leaders to focus on being more intentional. This means being flexible with respect to employee schedules, understanding of the challenges they may have had working remotely or in their personal lives, and being deliberate about reaching out to them to make sure they’re happy, comfortable, and adjusting well to the different dynamics that the pandemic has introduced.
Beyond the emotional well-being of employees, IT leaders need to ensure that employees have the tools necessary to be successful. Are they happy with the equipment they received at the start of the pandemic to facilitate remote work? Do they need anything else? Are they satisfied with the technical support that is available?
Once you have a baseline for their well-being, only then can you plan for leading change management. At the Atlanta Housing Authority, our IT leadership team employs a four-step process to drive change management: demonstrate value, involve every layer, engage, and assess and adapt.
Leaders need to show value – whether that’s in the initiative they’re leading or a new process they want to introduce. Demonstrating value – whether it’s monetary or an increase in productivity – is how you achieve consensus. That consensus needs to come from the top.
When you’re looking for that consensus and support, it’s important not only to show the direct value for the organization, but also how it’s supportive of the organization’s strategy and how it helps execute that strategy.
After achieving that consensus, we involve every layer. Sometimes it’s easy to be myopic and direct our focus to our directors or those who will be directly involved in our initiative, but it’s important to understand that involving secondary and tertiary resources is necessary. They will either be involved in the change itself or the change will somehow impact them and looping them in is key.
This is a step that people often miss. Everyone understands that culture is set by leadership and consensus also comes from the top, and often that’s where people stop. They fail to consider involving a key function, person, or practice – all integral to successful change management.
Once we have involved every layer, we need to continuously engage them, whether they’re at the executive or board level or whether they’re a third party hired to help with the change.
If there is a third party, it’s important that they too are engaged and involving the necessary resources at all applicable layers.
