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• everybody has a sense of purpose
• no one can ‘just’ make changes
• people know who is responsible for what change related function
• there is a common approach to the management of change
• change only gets easier as lessons learned are captured and communicated across the organisation
• opportunities that might otherwise be overlooked or perceived as adding little value can be explored and evaluated for their real worth to the organisation; these can and often do      come from within the workforce
• changes where the evidence show little or no gain to the organisation can be stopped relieving the pressure on those personnel labouring on difficult or unpopular change projects
• the confidence in the organisation to deliver beneficial change is high
• issues and problems associated with change are ‘surfaced’ and dealt with swiftly
• change is something that the organisation can embrace rather than be anxious about
• individual and functional goals are easier to manage
• people have a platform for  greater collaboration
• the greater expectation placed on individuals supports the organisation’s leadership aspirations
• a portfolio of change projects can be established where each is selected based upon its evidential contribution to the organisation’s goals 

There are further organisational gains that could be added as  direct result of using Benefits Management but they are more related to business performance rather than the experiences of individuals which is the focus of this post.

It must be stressed that Benefits Management enables and supports these desirable outcomes but in order to achieve them significant cultural change must be examined and made. The Benefits Management rigour does though enable the context and agenda for such change to be made.

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• it provides a context for general change discussion it sets an agenda for change that everyone can relate too
• it lends itself to process and procedure and thereby enables a platform for continuous improvement
• it reinforces the need for effective stakeholder identification
• it produces and validates change related information
• it enables agile organizational change management
• it enables alignment of change activity with organizations strategic objectives
• resources can be directed toward those change needs that provide the greatest business benefit
• realistic prioritization of change project and programmes can be made with the availability of accurate and timely information

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However, although recognised as a key management discipline, the role and utility of Change Management is often ‘under-estimated’ and ‘under-exploited’ resulting in unnecessary stakeholder uncertainty and frustration which, in itself, can have a significantly adverse impact on change performance and increase the build up of resistive and regressive forces.

Whereas the Benefits Management discipline tends to treat a specific change as a ‘black-box’ up until its deployment is being considered, Change Management manages the overall organisation’s readiness and preparedness for change and seeks to go ‘inside the box’ to analysis and expose the characteristics and nature of the changes to be made e.g. people, systems, process, behaviour, culture, environment etc at the earliest opportunity in the process.

In raising the profile of Change Management, the role that Benefits Management plays in implicating the organisation’s personnel in the identification and design of the required changes should not be ignored. When combined, the practises and rigour of Benefits Management and the learning and experience of the Change Management discipline do much to enable successful and sustainable change.

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• ability to work independently, without management power, sanction and support
• an effective collaborator able to compete in ways that enhance cooperation
• the ability to develop high trust relationships, based on high ethical standards
• self-confidence, tempered with humility
• respect for the process of change, as well as the content
• able to work across business functions and units, ‘multifaceted and ambidextrous’
• the willingness to stake reward on results and gain satisfaction from success

It is possible to relate these attributes to many management roles but the important point to note here is that the management subject and context is ‘change’ i.e. helping organisations and people to do things differently. 

The need to see things from the perspective of others plays an important role in enabling and progressing change (Paton and McCalman, 2008) with this in mind, and based upon his personal experience, the author would also add the ability to empathize with people to this list. This suggests that a Change Manager may well be more effective if they have working knowledge of the practices in the arena in which they are operating and also that they have non-change related man management experience.  

During a formal discussion of a change related topic it is the Change Manager; with no other agenda except the successful outcome of the change effort, who speaks out, albeit in context, in support of the specific change management need. Not an easy proposition because as Machiavelli, quoted in De Caluwé and Vermaark (2003), writes: 

‘nothing is more difficult to take on, more precarious to lead, or less certain of success than introducing new things, because the person introducing them makes an enemy of those who fared well under the old situation and those that might fare well under the new situation do not (yet) defend it zealously’ 

Although certain aspects of change management will be apparent in functional areas of an organisation such as Engineering & Project Management i.e. measurement, control, impact assessment etc. they would not be generally recognisable as pertaining to the science of change management. It is the willingness of the Change Manager to take on multiple and sometimes conflicting agendas seen as necessary for them to be successful change agents that sets them apart from other arbiters of change in an organisation (Buchanan and Boddy, 1992). 

No different from another occupation, Change Managers are always learning and there is no shame in having weaknesses or even gaps in experience that need filling. But paramount is the need for the Change Manager, with often so much at stake, to be able to operate as a neutral force for good (Paton and McCalman, 2008), declaring when appropriate, limitations which, if left unacknowledged, could adversely impact the performance of a given change. A consequence of this is that the Change Manager must be prepared to grow in the role and constantly learn from his experiences.  Kolb (1984 p.1) states that: 

‘our survival depends on our ability to adapt not only in the reactive sense of fitting into the physical and socials worlds, but in the proactive sense of creating and shaping those worlds’ 

This must surely be the case for the Change Manager who, using his own individual change management style must work to do what is required to achieve a given change within the presented context. The Change Manager must leverage his knowledge and interpretation of the available reference material to analyze the prevailing change scenario and provide a service such that an appreciative but effective understanding is gained and an appropriate strategy produced and successful outcome achieved. This fundamentalist stance, when coupled with ‘whole solution’ cyclic approaches that include such stages as problem definition, context, diagnosis, intervention and monitoring, together provide the Change Manager with a basic framework and toolkit with which to work. 

Stages may be revisited iteratively, as the change initiative progresses to enable the change environment and context to be fully revealed and reconciled. Within this cycle other models can be used to learn from experiences and feed that learning back to produce an evolved way of working (Buckler, 1996 cited in Paton and McCalman, 2008) (Kolb, 1984) (Argyris, 1977a).

References:

Buchanan, D & Huczynski, A (2004) Organizational Behaviour, An Introductory Text, 5^th edit, Harlow, England, Pearson Education Ltd

Paton, R and McCalman, J (2008) Change Management – A Guide to Effective Implementation, 3^rd edit, London, Sage Publications Ltd

De Caluwé, L and Vermaark, H (2003) Learning to Change: A Guide for Organization Change Agents, London, Sage Publications

Buchanan, D & Boddy, D (1992) The expertise of the Change Agent, Public Performance and Backstage Activity, 1^st edit, Hemel Hempstead, England, Prentice Hall International (UK) 

Kolb, D (1984) Experiential Learning, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, Inc

Argyris, C (September-October 1977a) Double loop learning in organizations, Harvard Business Review, pp. 115-125

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