All you need to know about change management

An interview with Stella Green on Change Management

Why do companies engage change strategists? What are the benefits of having an external 'change manager'?

The organisations, big and small, that call us in have a strong focus on their people.  They realise there is a greater potential in a physical layout move or refit than just space saving, introducing excessive collaboration or funky furniture.

They want to uncover the best solution for their people, involve their people in the solution, and to take them on the journey with what is often an opportunity to not just step up their workspaces, but how they work, their culture and their external brand identity.

Real client benefits come from our ability to accelerate the acceptance of change and bring relevant best practice into view and then facilitate through deep understanding of that client, a best fit set of solutions and tools.

We assist clients to achieve their goals through new approaches to workplace strategy. We use analytical and practical tools to create new work styles that become embedded into the organisation. 

What is the most important thing(s) employers and employees can do to help themselves through change?

1.    Identify the compelling opportunity that the project offers: why you are doing it, how it links to your vision, values and strategic direction, and what you can hope to achieve.  

2.    Involve your people from the outset in the possibilities and the solutions and in line with effort in the redesign.

3.    Integrate all elements of the changes required to deliver on the opportunity – be it technology, property, culture, systems -  to provide a cohesive experience for your people

What are the typical 'issues' -- both practical and emotional -- that come to the fore when companies are moving headquarters?

There is no “one size fits all” change solution, each organization will be at different stages of maturity as it comes to culture, ways of working, knowledge management and change.  There is no silver bullet unfortunately.  That said, we often help organisations address behaviours that have become the norm and risk holding back the potential of the project, manage heightened expectations in balance with practical needs of space, functionality and budget, and recreate new norms and ways of working.   Tackling knowledge management in a new way is frequently a liberating win and a big step forward for most organisations.

Many workplace changes investigate a move to a very flexible, 'clean-desk' style of workspace -- are there any particular concerns that come with moving away from assigned desking/traditional work style to this more 'egalitarian' mode of interacting?  

Some of the earliest concerns are around letting go of territorial spaces and realizing that with supported flexibility comes a myriad of choices as to where and how people can work at any given time.  Sharing spaces and resources, trusting that they are reliably available, and making it is easy to get work done certainly  create some concerns initially.

With human nature as it is, the biggest challenge is often to disrupt ourselves, in order to anticipate and move on from our current sense of comfort to a new normal.

We co-create the workplace change strategies and the new practices for each team’s everyday way of working to make the change sustainable and stick.

Any advice, or your thoughts, on the changes to workplace organisation and office fit-outs that we've seen happening over the past few years?

Certainly don't get caught up in the latest trends without putting the analysis in place to test the suitability of any alternatives in your workplace strategy. Assess and taylor the change strategy to suit the  hybrid collection of different workstyles that we uncover in the organisation.  

Workstyles track how staff organise their work, manage their time, interact with others, contribute to the team, and communicate. Workstyle profiling is used  to describe how different groups of people in an organisation work together and individually and describing their optimum working style and characteristics. Differing skills for collaborating with others, responding to projects,  concentrating and utilising technology  effects how the workplace enables their work.  We gather an understanding of roles, workstyles and needs of leaders and teams and form a workstyle tool for ongoing use by the organisation.