With all the talk about generative AI, the impact it will have on people, businesses and industries, I started to think what will be the impact on change management and particularly the role of a change professional? And I realised that change management, like potentially most professional roles, is actually split into two halves with one being science and the other being art. The science element is made up of the products that one can typically see/point to, like a change plan, stakeholder map, training plan, etc. Whereas the art element is made up of what you can see as well, but only if you take the time to observe and notice the impact it has on environments, people, productivity, retention rates, etc. because it involves the people side of change.
You may ask, what exactly is the people side of change? Like art, change is emotional – it will evoke joy, calm, anger, upset…a whole host of emotions. And these emotions will be different for different people at different times. Also, the same change can evoke a different emotion with the same person at a different time.
So the people side of change is understanding the emotion and potential emotions that the change may evoke at any given time depending on how the change is managed. It is about being able to determine what emotions might be displayed and in what ways and how best to enable situations to have the best outcomes taking into consideration those emotions.
Now why is this significant? Firstly because every organisation is about generating money – it might be for profit, it might be for a cause or it might be to provide a public service. The purpose is irrelevant but the need to generate money is critical (obviously) because that will enable the operations to happen or not. The ability for an organisation to generate money is dependent on its people and if they do not feel positive, then the ability to produce positive results is greatly reduced.
Secondly, dealing, managing and helping people work through emotions takes patience, sympathy, empathy, trust, confidence, honesty, openness – the list goes on – but ultimately it takes TIME – and longer than you think. Furthermore, lots of people find managing and dealing with emotions difficult and uncomfortable, which many times leads to managers ignoring them or sweeping them under the rug.
However, no matter how many times you say to someone “just get over it,” or “suck it up and move on,” or pretend it is not happening, it is not actually going to help or have a positive outcome. There is no one on the planet, that I am aware of, that is able to do just flip their emotions on and off like a light switch. The person may not react straight away (outwardly), and there may not be immediate major ramifications, but there will be some at some point because we humans need time to wrap our head around whatever emotion we are feeling, within any given moment. So, again we need TIME.
A changing role
This is where the focus of change management and the role of the change practitioner needs to be for ALL change programmes. Already there are generative AI programmes that enable the science element of the role to happen almost automatically, and this will only get better. Therefore this is not the value a change professional genuinely brings to a change programme. The value is in the art – in how they manage, lead, help people on the journey and this is through the handling of people’s emotions and this will continue to increase over the next decade.
Dex Hunter Torricke said “The next 10 years are going to be the most disruptive we have ever experienced” (Festival of Work 2024). When he said that, he was referring to the stuff that is going to happen, so now imagine the impact this will have on us humans? Mental health, psychological safety, sense of purpose and value: all these things create a culture within an organisation and the organisation then operates within that culture and the success of the organisation is dependent on said culture. So, in order to keep our organisations productive, we will need to invest in how we manage people and hence their emotions.
Last week, I had the pleasure of hearing Dave Coplin speak on the change AI will have on people and one message resonated with me “Take the robot out of people.” And I thought that is exactly right – we need to take the robot out of what we do and focus entirely on the non-robot ‘to-do’s’. We need to focus on the art of our roles.
Now this is not to say the art is easy because everyone knows to create genuine art is definitely NOT easy. But it is well worth it when we take the TIME to really focus and give the art the spotlight. If you are not convinced, then take a look at the queues outside the National Gallery, the speed of which tickets are sold for music concerts, count the number of theatres that have live shows happening on any given night of the week and look up how many films are produced and viewed each year.
Art is what we crave in life and this does not stop at the office/workplace door. So when you are planning your change, think about how you are going to manage the art of the change – the emotion of your people, rather than the communication or training plan.
Jennifer Bryan is a published author, speaker and Director of Change and Leadership, who has worked with nearly 40 different organisations across multiple industries. She is also a Non Executive Board Member of the ACMP (Association of Change Management Professionals) UK Chapter. She believes in helping people – in whatever capacity she can – by making sure people are thought of first, last and throughout change projects and programmes. She has created a unique leading change framework, the ABChange Model, and uses her commercial insight to help lead people in change. Jennifer is author of Leading People in Change – A practical guide.
Image: Newton by William Blake. The painting can be seen at Tate Modern
September 24, 2024
The science and art of change management
by Jennifer Bryan • Business, Comment, JB
You may ask, what exactly is the people side of change? Like art, change is emotional – it will evoke joy, calm, anger, upset…a whole host of emotions. And these emotions will be different for different people at different times. Also, the same change can evoke a different emotion with the same person at a different time.
So the people side of change is understanding the emotion and potential emotions that the change may evoke at any given time depending on how the change is managed. It is about being able to determine what emotions might be displayed and in what ways and how best to enable situations to have the best outcomes taking into consideration those emotions.
Now why is this significant? Firstly because every organisation is about generating money – it might be for profit, it might be for a cause or it might be to provide a public service. The purpose is irrelevant but the need to generate money is critical (obviously) because that will enable the operations to happen or not. The ability for an organisation to generate money is dependent on its people and if they do not feel positive, then the ability to produce positive results is greatly reduced.
Secondly, dealing, managing and helping people work through emotions takes patience, sympathy, empathy, trust, confidence, honesty, openness – the list goes on – but ultimately it takes TIME – and longer than you think. Furthermore, lots of people find managing and dealing with emotions difficult and uncomfortable, which many times leads to managers ignoring them or sweeping them under the rug.
However, no matter how many times you say to someone “just get over it,” or “suck it up and move on,” or pretend it is not happening, it is not actually going to help or have a positive outcome. There is no one on the planet, that I am aware of, that is able to do just flip their emotions on and off like a light switch. The person may not react straight away (outwardly), and there may not be immediate major ramifications, but there will be some at some point because we humans need time to wrap our head around whatever emotion we are feeling, within any given moment. So, again we need TIME.
A changing role
This is where the focus of change management and the role of the change practitioner needs to be for ALL change programmes. Already there are generative AI programmes that enable the science element of the role to happen almost automatically, and this will only get better. Therefore this is not the value a change professional genuinely brings to a change programme. The value is in the art – in how they manage, lead, help people on the journey and this is through the handling of people’s emotions and this will continue to increase over the next decade.
Dex Hunter Torricke said “The next 10 years are going to be the most disruptive we have ever experienced” (Festival of Work 2024). When he said that, he was referring to the stuff that is going to happen, so now imagine the impact this will have on us humans? Mental health, psychological safety, sense of purpose and value: all these things create a culture within an organisation and the organisation then operates within that culture and the success of the organisation is dependent on said culture. So, in order to keep our organisations productive, we will need to invest in how we manage people and hence their emotions.
Last week, I had the pleasure of hearing Dave Coplin speak on the change AI will have on people and one message resonated with me “Take the robot out of people.” And I thought that is exactly right – we need to take the robot out of what we do and focus entirely on the non-robot ‘to-do’s’. We need to focus on the art of our roles.
Now this is not to say the art is easy because everyone knows to create genuine art is definitely NOT easy. But it is well worth it when we take the TIME to really focus and give the art the spotlight. If you are not convinced, then take a look at the queues outside the National Gallery, the speed of which tickets are sold for music concerts, count the number of theatres that have live shows happening on any given night of the week and look up how many films are produced and viewed each year.
Art is what we crave in life and this does not stop at the office/workplace door. So when you are planning your change, think about how you are going to manage the art of the change – the emotion of your people, rather than the communication or training plan.
Jennifer Bryan is a published author, speaker and Director of Change and Leadership, who has worked with nearly 40 different organisations across multiple industries. She is also a Non Executive Board Member of the ACMP (Association of Change Management Professionals) UK Chapter. She believes in helping people – in whatever capacity she can – by making sure people are thought of first, last and throughout change projects and programmes. She has created a unique leading change framework, the ABChange Model, and uses her commercial insight to help lead people in change. Jennifer is author of Leading People in Change – A practical guide.
Image: Newton by William Blake. The painting can be seen at Tate Modern