The Change Manager has the ability to anticipate and respond effectively to a wide variety of workplace changes, which involves shifting/transitioning individuals and teams from a current state to a desired future state.
The effective change manager is skilled at helping others accept and embrace change in their current business environment. Such changes include overall vision, mission and goals for the organization, and whether these are strategic, operational, technological or attitudinal in their nature.
The following ingredients should be added, blended well and left to mature over time:
• Proactive thinking is the ability to maintain a conscious awareness of events and situations around you and to take action to be ready when you see change on the horizon. This includes making small adjustments now to be as well prepared as possible later.
• Involving others is the ability to talk and consult with others, to both gain and impart useful information and network with people to understand or learn about their feelings.
• Visualizing the future is about devoting regular time to thinking about the medium and long-term future in order to identify a positive and compelling vision of what could be, so that others understand this and get on board with the change early.
• Communicating clearly involves describing change in simple language and in understandable and appealing ways for every individual and change stakeholder group.
• Breaking from the past is the ability to successfully ease yourself and others away from the familiarity of past approaches and towards the benefits of the “new order or world” or the ability to draw a firm line between the past and the future in order to make a transition.
• Consolidating new learning involves actively engaging in personal learning and offering to coach others in handling change by taking the “plunge” in a “safe” environment or creating an environment in which people feel comfortable that they can take on or learn new skills and behaviors without fear or trepidation.
The Change Manager has all of these ingredients; no substitutions or omissions can be made to the recipe.
