What Is organisational Change? A Simple Overview

organisational Change

organisational change is the process of intentionally changing key aspects of an organisation by delivering a series of change projects or programs. Aspects changes through these programs could include: organisational design, systems, employee experience, ways of working, culture, structures, or broader changes.

Ultimately, the purpose of any organisational change program is to help the organisation become better equipped to deliver its strategic objectives.

There are many different aspects of organisations that can change through the delivery of organisational change programs. For our purposes, we’ll split these as either people related changes, or non-people related changes.

People related changes typically include things like culture and behavior change programs. These programmes typically introduce new ways of working at an organisational level. People related changes also need to take into consideration the individual psychological changes that all individuals need to manage themselves through as organisations develop.

Non people-related changes can be thought of as changes to the artifacts, concepts and process of an organisation. Changes of this type can include things like the introduction of new policies, changes to processes, modifications to strategy, alterations to systems and changes to structures

While it’s good to think of and conceptualize people and non-people related changes as different things, the reality is that in the messy world of organisations, they all end up becoming interrelated. They originate from different intentions, but ultimately are connected due to the systemic nature of organisations.

We also note that splitting these changes between “hard” and “easy” is a bit of a simplistic and misleading thing to do, but our purpose in doing so is just to illustrate the added levels of complexity that are often involved when looking to “change” people.

organisational Change Models

Frameworks of organisational change (Such as the McKinsey 7S and the Burke-Litwin) help us understand the different factors that are affected when we introduce changes into an organisation. Models of organisational change (such as Kurt Lewin’s and John Kotter’s) give us guidance on the best ways to actually lead change.

There are many different models out there, but our view is that most of them basically say the same thing. In essence they all try to overcome three core challenges associated with change:

1. When people aren’t ready to change, they will not change.
2. If people can’t practice the changes that are being introduced, the changes will fail.
3. When people can’t see the benefits of the new ways of doing things, they will probably revert to their old ways of doing things.

It’s worth looking at a range of models when you are planning your organisational change. It’s worth learning little from all of them, before selecting one to base your change program on.

Learning More

organisations often seek to change and improve, and often use organisational development programs to do so. There are many models that seek to explain how change in organisations happens. Some models to consider in the first instance include Kotter’s 8 Step Model, Lewin’s Change Model and the ADKAR model.

Similarly, there are many models that seek to explain individuals change. These include the Bridges model and the Kubler-Ross change curve.

We think organisational change is a fascinating and hugely important concept and activity.

organisations spend nearly all their time changing, so organisational change is always taking place. In some ways organisational change is really just another way to think about organisational leadership.

There are many models of change that we look at elsewhere. But they key point that we’re interested in here is the distinction between people related change and other forms of change. In our view, the people side of organisational change is the essence of organisational leadership. We think it is a key skill for all leaders to work on.