Modern change management

When discussing the requirements of modern change management, you are sometimes confronted with the sentence “Everything flows.” It is intended to characterize the dynamics of change in companies and to illustrate that companies and their employees must be able to change and be willing to change if they want to survive economically in the future.

The first theses are put forward in which the classic models by Kurt Lewin or Edgar Schein with their phases of “Unfreeze — Move — Freeze” are shelved and devalued as outdated in view of the obviously permanent change. Instead, you have to get used to the fact that everything is in a constant flow. You live in Move And I have to accept that Freeze Story is. A point of view that should be contradicted from a systemic and motivational theory perspective.

Let employees develop themselves

From a systemic perspective, all systems — including companies — strive for a stable state. Without this stability, the goal of economic productivity is a long way off. Change processes from a systemic perspective characterize the transition from a productive system after a malfunction to a new productive system. The malfunction, caused by changes in framework conditions, for example, calls into question the past. Business models, products and services, and processes are being adapted. Employees recognize that their previous competencies are no longer sufficient, realign themselves, learn to find their way around and adapt. Leadership provides the framework for this transition. Employees can develop in this process in a supported but self-organized way. They learn, overcome the fault and experience that, in cooperation with the partners in the system, they can master the challenge and emerge from it stronger. They are taking their expertise to a new level. If this process succeeds, the desired state of change and with it the new productive system is achieved, employees see themselves as self-effective. They develop the conviction that they can also master future system transitions.

However, the prerequisite for this is that a new stable system state is actually achieved. Living and working in a permanent Move prevents this experience. Instead, employees learn that initiated projects are not brought to an end, but are replaced by new ideas at an early stage. Goal orientation and spirit of optimism are overshadowed by non-commitment and erosion of trust. The willingness to be enthusiastic about new things decreases. Employees in such systems lose confidence in their own performance, lose self-confidence and self-confidence. When everything flows, the systems start drifting aimlessly. There is uncertainty among those involved. Sustainability and economic success are not to be expected from these systems.

Leading successfully — creating transitions with courage and structure

With all the explainable urge for decentralization, personal responsibility and self-organization, the need for leadership that shapes the transition to a new, productive system after a disruption appears greater than ever. Leadership must provide the framework for achieving new stable system states. It should be able to provoke necessary disturbances. Leadership also needs the courage to accept the pain of the transition and should finally have a clear perspective of a new organizational system for the company that promises economic success in the future.

Provoke disorders

It is indisputable that companies are exposed to a wide range of changing conditions. Management must enable the system to identify the significance of these changes for their own company and to present them transparently. She must either highlight and communicate the urgency of necessary adjustments herself, or she delegates this task to employees in a decentralized manner. Leadership must provoke necessary disruptions or allow disruptive provocations.

Ideally, employees at all levels are given the freedom to set disruptive accents when they see the business model being attacked as a result of their role. Open Innovation or processes in which intrapreneurs can contribute their ideas offer the appropriate organizational framework.

Dare to pain of transition

If a company agrees to change, this process is associated with pain. Disrupting a system also means accepting losses in productivity during the period of change. Leadership should be able to see this pain of transition as an investment and convey to employees as a price to pay for the desired, better system.

This phase can be constructively supported if management establishes a process of reflection and learning appropriate to the change. Mistakes become learning impulses and employees are encouraged to actively drive change forward. Reflecting together teaches you to process setbacks and to think ahead constructively.

Show the perspective of functioning organization systems

Change processes need a goal, even if it can only be blurred out at the start of the change. Employees will be able to endure the pain of change if they What for Have in mind and when this What for appears sufficiently attractive for them.

Leadership must be able to show this perspective. Ideally, this idea is developed jointly by the new system at the beginning with the involvement of all those affected. Leadership should create a framework in which the team mutually assures each other of the common goal orientation. When changes have been managed, it is the responsibility of management to let employees experience that a new, sustainable system has been achieved.

It is possible that economic goals may be missed. But even and especially then, leadership is required to recognize employees for what they have done during the change. Without recognition or the feeling of having mastered a system disorder in the best possible way, there is no self-efficacy. Without self-efficacy, there is no willingness to change. Without willingness to change, a company goes under — especially in times when everything seems to be flowing.