There are many definitions of “change management,” and Wikipedia’s is as good as any: “change management is a structured approach to the change in individuals, teams, organizations and societies that enables the transition from a current state to a desired future state.”  The contributors to Wikipedia then suggest that change management is then sub-divided into individual change management (addressing the approach of moving a single person through a change), and organizational change management (moving a group of people through a change.) 

Change management is an approach or a set of activities.  If one uses Stephen Covey’s habit #2, begin with the end in mind, one focuses on the expected outcome.  With that in mind, I believe the most important part of creating transformational change is preparing the organization to move, hence the term, “organization readiness” or “org readiness” for short.  The activities are of course very important, but it is critically important to never lose sight of the objective.

Organizational Change Management helps impacted people feel and do the right things through tactics such as communication, training and knowledge management.  Organizational Readiness is different in that it uses those tactics as well as strong leadership, robust participatory programs and a focus on designing efficient and effective work practices.  Organizational Readiness is the operational effectiveness and workforce alignment that results from change management.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 5:27 am and is filed under Change Management.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.