Organizational Change Mangement, OCM consultingThe study of how to navigate a major organizational change within a business has become a topic in its own right; Organizational Change Management (OCM). Few changes in business are as large as those dealing with Enterprise Resource Planning. These massive ERP systems put a finger in every cookie jar, peer into all corners of your business, and provide an interface for vital parts of your working world. So naturally, when it comes to ERP-related decisions, OCM wants to step in and facilitate your company’s movement towards managing organizational change in the workplace. But movement as a group is also facilitated by another, older approach, one that isn’t talked about enough: trust.
CHANGE MANAGEMENT PLANS SHOULD TRUST EMPLOYEES
We don’t mean trust found at the very end of a decision, where you now have to woo subordinates to your new management models. We are talking about trust at the beginning of such organizational change management decisions, those that may shake some securities and relationships. These initial decisions can only benefit from receiving strategy consulting input from those who are going to be impacted. Who could blame team members for being resentful if they weren’t consulted on how a new or upgraded ERP system might affect the very work they were hired to do?
MANAGEMENT CONSULTING EMPLOYEES
By the same token, a change management strategy should take advantage of the very expertise and experience that their employees were hired for. It would be foolish to assume that management equates with omniscience, or to devalue multiple perspectives when managing change in the workplace. Likewise, approaching various areas of the company that will make use of the ERP reinforces the fact that specific expertise is valued and that individuals are important. To be thought of as an expert (or at least skilled) but also ignored is a paradox that produces some of the very resentment and resistance to change that OCM seeks to eliminate.
Similarly, over-isolation of management from other areas of a business leaves managers out of touch with ongoing concerns. This fosters the notion that decision-makers only seek to make only their own jobs easier. With wages having stagnated since the 1970s for those making below $75,000, that’s a notion that cannot be afforded. If your firm’s subordinates feel that decisions are made in consultation with the people on the ground, then the appearance of aristocracy will lessen and the whole company will feel as though it’s moving toward a common good.
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