This discipline is very cross-disciplinary, requiring a mix of business skills, digital savvy, and people skills. Here are a few of the most important tools you’ll need to succeed in today’s change management positions:
- Communication
The ability to communicate is essential to many jobs. However, it’s absolutely critical for change managers. Communication skills help:
- Mitigate employee resistance
- Boost motivation, morale, and productivity
- Enhance collaboration at every level, boosting program productivity
- Get higher quality feedback from participants and stakeholders
- Every change management program is driven by its employees.
The better you can communicate your vision, your plan, and your program’s benefits, the more successful your initiative will be.
- Leadership
Leadership is essential for driving change programs forward. Employees need:
- Examples to follow
- A direction to move in
- A vision and a story to hold on to
- Providing these is the leader’s job.
In some cases, change leadership and change management are handled by different people. In smaller organizations, the same person may wear both hats. Either way, leadership is required to organize employees, mobilize support, and push a project the completion.
- Vision
Vision is the ability to see a program’s “after” state. Having that vision helps:
- Employees see which direction they’re moving in
- Improve motivation
- Create a change story to follow
- Change leaders are usually the ones credited with possessing and promoting this vision.
Though change is not impossible without vision, its vision that defines the direction and purpose of a change initiative.
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