If change equals growth, then we will always want our company to be changing and thus growing. As the project manager of a new initiative in our company, I am proposing that we are in need of a change manager. If the company will choose to invest upfront in a change manager there will be many benefits in the long run. One way to look at this is prevention rather than reaction. I am going to lay out for you what a change manager is, why a change manger is important for this project, and how it will benefit the company. I will also show you examples of evidence based research that backs up this claim and makes recommendations of locally based change management companies.
The definition of what change management or a change manger is can vary. However, to put it simply, change management is a structured approach to being able to smoothly transition teams, organizations, people and businesses, through the process of change. This can be applied at different times in the life and growth of a company. It can be having to change to a new computer system or other technological changes, it can be having to downsize, or add new employees, or in our current situation, it is starting a new project. All of these things involve the change process which can be hard for people who grow comfortable in what they know. A piece of what the change manger can also help facilitate is managing this transition of changes within the company. It is the change manager that can help the business to minimize resistance, increase engagement, reduce overall costs, improve performance and to help encourage creativity and innovation.
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A change manager is someone that will be able to help our employees create a growth mindset. Growth mindset is a concept that implies that we are ever changing and growing, and that we need adversity and mistakes and challenges to be able to grow. In contrast a fixed mindset is a thought process that your intelligence skills and abilities are fixed or set. An example of this would be a person with amazing athletic abilities who doesn’t work hard in practice but can still do well in the game. On the contrary the person who works hard everyday in practice, with less athletic ability can be just as successful because with growth mindset, hard work can create positive change. A change manager is someone that can help us facilitate this. It is critically important that this person is a third party, and not part of the company. The reason for this is that someone within the company may feel compelled to follow the same norms, and stick with the company culture. A third-party entity is not going to have this same feeling of obligation to the company. They are going to be able to challenge the norms and culture if this is not creating this growth mindset that is needed for a company to expand, grow and succeed.
I also want to point out that the purpose of the change manager is put themselves out of a job. Their goal is to come in and to create change leadership within the company and to set the stage for long term success.
In doing research on the subject, I looked at a literature review that reviewed several research articles about the need for organizational change management (Dhingra & Punia 2016). The review highlighted that in this research it is strongly suggested that change is an inevitable part of the business world and that change is needed for growth. It also suggests that in all of the research that has been reviewed on this topic over a 10-year period that one of the biggest predictors of how successful the project is, depends on how change is managed.
A second study that was looked at studied the development of self-awareness and self-management and the impact of learning change management skills (Hornstein, 2015). This study recommended that organizations seek out not only top-level managers with emotional intelligence skills, but that a third party can be integral in terms of managerial success, and that these skills can be developed. This can help to create this growth mindset and could enable them to motivate themselves as well as the employees that work for them and this in turn will lead to company success in the future.
In taking this process a step further to make it a reality, I have researched some locally based companies. The one that I found to have the most useful website, ease of information and overall feel that it will be a good fit for our company is Keystone International. Keystone is an Albuquerque based company as well as a Veteran owned small business (Keystone, n.d.). They provide a third-party entity that can provide a change manager to provide support services to help our company advance to a growth mindset and to be able to give a fresh, and unbiased look at the company culture and current change processes (Keystone, n.d.). I ask you to check out their website and to join me in calling them to explore more about how their services can benefit us.
In conclusion, I think that as a project manager it is my duty to promote change and positive growth within the company. I feel that having a change manager that is a third party will be beneficial to helping us as a company accomplish that goal. I also feel that creating a new culture around growth mindset is essential to any business for long term success. Not only is this something that I strongly believe in, but I have provided evidence through research that this is not only a good idea, but that it is evidence based.
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