How to Make Changes Sustainable

If you do not change, you will become extinct.

One said “Nothing stays permanent except changes”, and that is why it required for both human and organization to make changes so that they can keep track with the modern world and technologies. It is a bit hard to make some changes in the organization because the people themselves feel that changes will affect their benefits, or they are reluctant whether they can adjust themselves with the changes or not. In relation to making changes, many theories and concepts have been conducted in order to make changes sustainable, and these include (Dunford et al, 2009):

A. Redesign role: To sustain changes, we have to consider of the employers and employers’ roles in the organization, and then redesign them. When reallocating the roles, it makes sure that changes will not affect them but make them better. Moreover, these are also related to attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs, for they are abstract and hard to be changed. Taking into deep account on these related factors, and then changes can be implemented.   

B. Redesign reward system: Some people are afraid of changes because they think that changes will affect their incumbent benefits in the organization. This is actually related to reward system such as good merit, tenure, promotion or salary raise, and it is required to reorganize so that changes can move forwards and be successfully done.  

C. Link selection decision to change objective: Selection is one of the most subtle but potent ways through which cultural assumptions get embedded and keep going. One bad succession decision at the top of an organization can undermine a decade of hard work.

D. Act consistently with advocated actions: Organization members often wait for the signals from senior management that say “we mean it”, or “we don’t really mean it”, and then put it to “walk the talk” by making sure that there is demonstration, not just articulation.

E. Encourage voluntary acts of initiatives: Changes are more likely to become embedded if those at the operational level are supported when they took action to develop the specific form of the general initiative that they believe to be appropriate for their local circumstance.

F. Measure progress: Two kinds of measure are helpful and these are (1). Result measures “how we will know that we’re there and that we have done it.” and (2) Process measure “how we will know we are doing the things all along that will get us to it or whether re-adjustments are in order.” In addition, a balanced set of performance measures will include: Leading and lagging measure, internal and external measures, and cost and non-cost measures.

G. Celebrate “En-Route”: Zealous believers will often stay the course no matter what happens. Most of the rest of us expect to see convincing evidence that all the effort is paying off. Nonbelievers have even higher standards of proof. They want to see clear data indicating that the changes are working” said Kotter.  

H. Fine tune: One of the biggest challenges is to be able to adjust and refine elements of the change without this being interpreted by those affected as a sign of failure. It’s up to leaders to help people make sense of what’s going on, to shape and retell the story, and to explain that the core principles driving change remain complete.

Sam Aun (Andy)