Change Management Training Course - 1 Day

Change is inevitable, because your situation is influenced by four forces:

1. Yourself
2. Other people
3. The system
4. Mother nature

We will discuss which of these forces you can control.

Change is built into the fabric of the system. We must all deal with change; economic, social, political, climate and environmental change is inevitable.

Change can be both good and bad. It depends on how you react to it, both emotionally and behaviourally. Some people respond well to change, but many people do not.

This course is about understanding the process of change; how people commonly respond, and how we can help them to embrace change, benefit from it and possibly even enjoy the process!

Like gravity, change is built into the fabric of the universe; you cannot get around change any more than you can get around gravity.

Yet many people try to fight change: They struggle and resist, and they do all they can to stay the same.

We explore what happens to individuals or groups that refuse to adapt to changing circumstances.

People don’t like change because change introduces two things: uncertainty, and a requirement to change personal habits. Since humans are creatures of habit, we tend to resist changing our habits. We would rather keep our old habitual ways of doing something. Changing habits takes you out of your comfort zone and introduces uncertainty.

Some people respond well to change. They enjoy it. But most people don’t.
We will analyse and list the typical responses we observe in people, when they are experiencing change.

An ideal reaction to change, would be to develop an adaptive response.

An adaptive response means seeing change as an inevitable reality. We should quickly perceive and identify the nature of the change, formulate a new goal, organise new plans, take effective action, and continually evolve our processes to keep pace with change.
Or even better, we should predict the change and get ahead of the curve, so that we are not merely reacting to changing circumstances, but rather, we are creating and benefiting from them.

Forced change is change imposed from external forces. These changes are normally more difficult to handle.

Self-directed change is as a result of our own decision and volition. These changes are normally easier to handle.

Our task as Change Managers is to make change as self-directed as we can.

The role of a change manager includes:

1. Identify the facts of the situation as they are, not as we would like them to be.
2. Set a legitimate and worthy goal to aim for.
3. Develop practical plans, capable of taking us from where we are now, to where we need to be.
4. Communication skills that are capable of bringing people along with us, hearts and minds, as we navigate the change process.
5. Positive, intelligent, empathetic and optimistic attitudes, to those who are affected by the changes, and who are often the same people who are responsible for the implementation of the change plans.

We present our change management process.

It has eight major parts and forms a logical system of related steps that describes successful change management:

1. Accurate perception and identification of the facts; set a clear goal.
2. Formulate and communicate new, practical plans.
3. Prioritise the actions and implement the plan.
4. Observe the feedback results, both positive and negative.
5. Analyse the positive feedback results.
6. Analyse the negative feedback, and learn the hidden lessons contained within it.
7. In the light of negative feedback results make evolutionary, adaptive changes.
8. In the light of positive feedback, make adaptive improvements. Return to 1

Effective change managers share three communication skills: They are able to communicate with clarity, rationality, and positivity.

Clarity: This means they will explain the purpose and reasons for the change, and they will clearly describe the plan and actions that will implement the change process.

Rationality: Nobody accepts change without good reason. So, the manager must be sure to provide a logical rationale that explains the change, to the satisfaction of intelligent people.

Positive emotion: Change is usually a trigger for many negative emotions, so the change manager must exude emotions of confidence, empathy and optimism.

We will show you how to communicate with clarity, reason and positive emotion.

We will also describe some common mistakes made by many change managers that have the effect of destroying the team’s morale.

We explore the emotional elements of change management.

The change process includes negative emotions and we must recognise them, empathise and support people through these emotions, without allowing their negative emotions to become a brake on the change process itself.

We will introduce you to two methods that will allow you to interrupt the negative conversations and emotions that proliferate during change situations, and how to transform these conversations into something more progressive and productive.

We have two methods for you:

1. Reframing.
2. Conversation control.

Our course presupposes that all the change managers are on top-form as they manage the process and help others.

But we must also recognise that the change managers themselves, are going through the same process.

So, who motivates the motivators? We motivate each other, and we motivate ourselves.

We finish this course on how we can manage ourselves, on all levels: mental health, physical health, work habits, emotional habits, relationships.