Organizational Change Management – Now More Than Ever

The global exchange of ideas and data is no longer limited by borders, time, distance or language. In becoming a Smarter Planet, we hope to change the paradigm from reacting to change to anticipating change. As enterprises become more instrumented, interconnected and intelligent they evolve to meet market demands against a complex backdrop of global social change. This requires organizational change management, now more than ever. Faced with fiscal challenges, a multi-generational workforce, exponentially advancing innovation and increasing social technologies, the enterprise struggles to manage organizational change proactively and effectively. To address these challenges, organizations, agencies and enterprises alike must recognize and embrace the fact that change management techniques are evolving to meet new requirements and new expectations.

In the past, top organizations around the world successfully followed leading practices in organizational change management (OCM) to support thousands of transformation projects. IBM has partnered with clients and customers from across the globe, in every industry, both public and private sector, to implement successful change programs. But now more than ever, business leaders and executives are called upon to fully engage and drive the change necessary to sustain meaningful business solutions. Recent studies conducted in C-suites around the world echo the need to elevate and integrate OCM techniques and tactics in support of increasingly complex projects and programs.

OCM provides the “how to” steps required to achieve true value from transformation. Selecting the right combination of approaches, methodologies, tools, techniques and tactics is extremely important to be successful. The speed at which information and data is generated and exchanged is forcing enterprises to refresh their tools and techniques as part of managing and achieving lasting change. We live in a new era of computing that provides us greater insight and contextual opportunity to excel and deliver lasting value through change. That can only be complimented and augmented by social business platforms, collaborative technologies and social media tools throughout the enterprise.

Any change generates a very human response in organizations. Human nature shows us that individuals are prone to resist being changed, but with the proper preparation, education, involvement, communication, and incentives, resistance decreases and performance increases. Consider the clarity quotient brought about by social business platforms or social media tools, which help capture and illuminate the enterprise’s unfiltered appreciation and appetite for change.

Looking at the potential for social media and social business tools to influence change and drive enterprise results, one has to ask, what does Organizational Change Management (OCM) in the future look like? Built on the cornerstone of tried and true techniques from our Making Change Work study, the next generation of change consultants is enthusiastically embracing and integrating social business platforms, processes and technologies to deliver better change and lasting value.