Change Management

Change Management Theories- Introduction

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Change Management Theory: Methods, Processes, Techniques, And Application

For businesses to survive, they need to evolve. They need to position themselves competitively by making timely changes to their operations in response to an ever-changing business environment. In order to ensure that needed changes occur quickly, Human Resources professionals must partner with the leadership team and other key stakeholders to:

  • Ensure that decisions are made as needed in a reasonable timeframe,
  • Ensure that financial, human, information and technology resources are aligned with the desired change,
  • Monitor the progress of key change initiatives,
  • Capture lessons learned and apply them to future change initiatives (Ulrich, Brockbank, Johnson, et al, 2008).

HR should be involved in the creation of the organization’s change management process.  The change management process needs to exist to avoid uncertainty and disarray when changes are needed.

There are several popular change management models which companies may apply to their change initiatives:

  1. Kurt Lewin’s Change Management model
  2. The McKinsey 7-S model
  3. Kotter’s 8-step model
  4. Nudge theory
  5. ADKAR
  6. Stephen Covey: 7 Habits model