Posted by Jennifer Grumbling
If you Google “change management,” you get about 240 million results. As you can imagine, this is a hot topic and has become quite the buzzword. What is it, and when did this become one of the most integral parts of managing the success of a business?
According to Wikipedia, Change Management is “the structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state.” Also, common sense (and Einstein) says that doing the same thing over and over expecting different results is the definition of insanity. So in comes Change Management.
At the heart of making or breaking effective change in an organization’s structure or processes is employee engagement. Change Management begins from the inside out. This couldn’t be truer in trade promotion management given that this facet of the foodservice industry evolves constantly to support an ever-changing and growing industry.
Gone are the days of entering and tracking massive amounts of data in a rudimentary Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Now, we are able to continually manage contract information, acquire data electronically, verify, reconcile and settle. More importantly, we can analyze and report on this data, something rarely done until recent years. Something rarely ABLE to be done until recent years. Answers Systems has been in the TPM industry for nearly 25 years and has been through its fair share of change to acclimate to the continued changes in this industry. Answers Systems has not only grown with the industry but has also blazed the trails for contract management. TPM involves the marriage of a vast amount of data with a system that will transform what appears to be gibberish into solid, reliable and actionable data for its clients. Answers Systems has cross-referenced over 20 million distributor SKUs and over 450,000 manufacturer SKUs, processes over 400,000 claims a year and settles over half a billion dollars in rebates. This is all possible because of the evolution of the TPM processes at Answers Systems. Now, would this have been possible if Answers Systems had focused solely on the change and its effect on the customer? Probably not. Again, it comes from the inside out. Working within its own structure to determine what changes are needed along with what changes are possible, and what changes can be successfully implemented. Training and working directly with employees that deal directly with clients as well as working with those that provide back-end support to the business before launching change tends to favor success. These are the people who are telling us what our customers want and need, so we must understand what they want and need in order to produce effective change. We could make all the changes in the world, but if our own employees don’t buy into the change, failure is imminent.
Now, I won’t take the time to get into the many different formulas, models and examples of how to control change management successfully. But one simple model that I have participated in and have seen work successfully is the PCI methodology. Developed by Changefirst in the 1990’s, there are six steps to effective change management:
This is a basic formula (of course there is much more background to this process) that outlines the success of implementing change. And as you can see, each step directly involves the employees’ engagement in the proposed change.
So, the next time you hear about changes coming down the pike, embrace it, ask questions and get involved in the change. If you are the one facilitating the change, remember to engage everyone involved, engage all employee affected by the change in order to successfully manage the process.
1. Shared Change Purpose - create and share a powerful case for change in the organization
2. Effective Change Leadership - develop strong change leadership for the initiative
3. Powerful Engagement Processes - build and deliver plans to engage people in the change
4. Committed Local Sponsors - build understanding and commitment of middle and front-line managers
5. Strong Personal Connection - create commitment and behavior changing actions for front-line people
6. Sustained Personal Performance - support people as they learn to adapt, managing their resistance sensitively and empathetically
This is a basic formula (of course there is much more background to this process) that outlines the success of implementing change. And as you can see, each step directly involves the employees’ engagement in the proposed change.
So, the next time you hear about changes coming down the pike, embrace it, ask questions and get involved in the change. If you are the one facilitating the change, remember to engage everyone involved, engage all employee affected by the change in order to successfully manage the process.
Technorati tags:
foodservice,
trade promotion management,
contract management