Building Change Maturity in Organisations

Introduction

An organisation's change maturity will greatly impact its ability to transform at the speeds needed to stay relevant in these fast-moving times. By assessing an organisation's change maturity with a model gaging level of Change maturity ‘as is’ factors related to levels in the organisation and actionable growth areas, we can support organisations to understand their Change maturity level, and how to develop this alongside tailoring the approach to value creation for increased return on investment. Further still, a model that can be extended into a framework will be even more supportive to organisations seeking to effectively reaching strategic goals and outcomes.

This chapter explores the currently available best practice around the context of change maturity in organisations. A topic not widely developed beyond a simple matrix table and explanation, save a few that have indeed leapt within specific disciplines. With change being as abundant as it is in these times, increasing change maturity has become a pure necessity. The speed of technological advances can leave an organisation unable to compete or give an advantage depending on it’s ability to adopt new technology and the capabilities it brings. Pandemics, climate change and sustainability measures, risk and compliance, the list of changes that not only need attention but scream for it is ongoing. The choices around how much one can prepare and introduce measures depend very much on an organisation's ability to effectively manage change, and are certainly not restricted to the profession of Change management. Why does change need to be managed to meet countless requirements? Management can speed up the adoption of new behaviours and tools, improve the overall number of people who take part and proficiently use the new ways. A common approach builds a shared language and understanding of change where key stakeholders can actively participaterather than watch on the sidelines or actively oppose the changes as they happen to them. It is important to remember that change is not linear, nor can it be contained to a single part of an organisation. True change maturity will incorporate a mix of a systematic approach, standard practice and a high amount of changeability. Growing a mindset where change management disappears because the outcome of change maturity is ‘change capable’, a new normal that every employee embodies. We only need change managers because this capability doesn’t exist yet.

These outcomes of change management support less impactful ways of carrying out more change in organisations. There are at least two understandings of ‘managing change’ emerging here. The one that manages ‘the people side of change’ is referred to as ‘Change Management’ within this text and is often related to change within projects. The Second holistically acknowledges all types of change occurring in organisations further referred to as ChangeOps or simply change maturity. ChangeOps is a strategic approach to different kinds of change, that will be the base of Change maturity building and a concept developed further within this chapter. A large amount of change needing to be implemented, put alongside the organisation's ability to implement change nearly always results in an answer of ‘speed up so we can get more done’, in a way where properly managed change of either kind can not occur. Many reasons exists, everything from ignorance, inability to understand the consequences of not changing, to having no personal vision or strategy when it comes to operational level management and company culture looking at this from a working environment perspective. This mentality is often driven by leaders who need to pivot their thinking toward the sustainability of their workforce, and understanding that speeding up mostly means surviving and then breaking rather than the desired business growth or other sustainable outcomes. Instead, shift to the concept of building change maturity in the first projects so an organisation can indeed hit the road running from survival mode to a c true thrive. Wait too long, and the crucial gaps will get too big to survive at all. The aim of this chapter is not to bring a doomsday message, but one to adapt now while the advancement gap is still small enough to avoid going beyond tipping points into a place of no return. Building change maturity alongside these vital projects to ensure that organisations can increase the effectiveness of those projects being carried out, make the most of the investment and shift mindset from maturity being a theoretical monster best left alone to an actionable think big start small strategy where value is delivered incrementally with every project that was going to take place anyway.