Evaluating and Sustaining Change
Some people think of change management and change leadership as two in the same not realizing this is a significant difference between the two. Change Management is the tools or processes used to control a change effort (Kotter, 2011). Change management is necessary to control such things as staff resistance/rebellion, the costs associated to change, problems, etc (Kotter, 2011). Change management is very much about control and making sure there are designated people to control specific aspects of the change effort (Kotter, 2011)
Change leadership differs in that it is the “driving forces, visions and processes that fuel large-scale transformation” (Kotter, 2011, para. 1). Change leadership more about urgency and having many people come together who want change. Change leadership is vision driven and the people are empowered (Kotter, 2011). According to Kotter (2011), change leadership is more associated with igniting the whole change process, speeding up the process, and working smarter and more efficiently.
Leaders articulate and communicate a vision, align constituents with the vision, and motivate the people for purposeful action (Fisher, 2018). Quality leaders empower the team as change champions. Evaluating processes through a team approach and creating a shared vision with the team leads to sustainability of quality change. A leader must be able to effectively communicate a vision with purpose in order to obtain buy-in from the constituents and align the people with the vision. Alignment means that people don’t just know the vision but understands and embraces the vision (Fisher, 2018). Aligning the people leads to commitment and moves people forward as part of the journey (Fisher, 2018). Once a leader has aligned the people with the vision and solidifies the commitment of the team they can move forward with evaluation, maintaining and sustaining change. Without the alignment and commitment leaders face resistance and rebellion thus leading to difficulty with maintaining and sustaining change. Evaluating change should be ongoing in an organization to ensure continuous quality. Change evaluation is necessary to identify gaps in a vision or process. Ongoing evaluation allows change leaders to proactively foster improvement rather than being reactive. Being reactive does not allow time to gain team alignment and may lead to resistance and failure.
References
Fisher, J. (2018). A model of integrated leadership. Organizational Dynamics, 47(2), 70–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2018.01.006
Kotter. (2011, July 12). Change management vs. change leadership — What’s the difference? Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkotter/2011/07/12/change-management-vs-change-leadership-whats-the-difference/?sh=50dd545f4cc6
Change is something that every organization requires at some point. Changes in technology, lives, perceptions, and beliefs contributed to this. The outcome of the change process might be either positive or negative (Kotter, 2021). All an organization needs to do to avoid negative consequences is understand and properly employ change management in partnership with change leadership, ensuring that all change requirements are completed before and during the change process. Change management refers to a set of tools and procedures that must be in place to keep change efforts in check (Holten et al., 2019). The major purpose is to mitigate the negative effects of change. It’s a method of implementing massive changes in an organization while remaining sensible and in control. A perfect example occurred in my company during a raw materials shortage. The problem arose due to the company’s rapid change of chairman, and the new management decided that for the company to continue, it needed to transform its structure and operations. On the other hand, change leadership examines the forces driving change, as well as the vision and procedures that support more significant transformative changes (Holten et al., 2019). It is most commonly connected with introducing an engine into the entire change process to make it more efficient, faster, and more so in large-scale conversions.
The health care setting is dynamic due to constant changes to improve efficiency, quality of care, and patient safety. Leadership is needed to push these goals, ensure that the set goal and target are met, and enhance sustained change in the organization (Chartier et al., 2018). Leadership is required to evaluate and sustain change by navigating the complex web depicted by the different disease areas, multidirectional plans, and staff within the health care setting. Furthermore, some employees may resist the new changes as a result of experiencing poor past management. Leadership is needed to communicate the need for change, engage employees in decision-making, and mobilize necessary support for the change (Chartier et al., 2018). The leaders are required to provide the correct direction and motivate employees to improve and innovate continuously. An organization should not stop measuring change. Measuring change is critical in determining and communicating the success and acceptance of the implemented process.it also helps determine whether the persons influenced by the change are progressing towards the required direction (Sipes, 2021).
REFERENCES
Chartier, L. B., Vaillancourt, S., Cheng, A. H. Y., & Stang, A. S. (2018). Quality improvement primer part 3: Evaluating and sustaining a quality improvement project in the emergency department. CJEM, 21(2), 261–268. https://doi.org/10.1017/cem.2018.380
Holten, A. L., Hancock, G. R., & Bøllingtoft, A. (2019). Studying the importance of change leadership and change management in layoffs, mergers, and closures. Management Decision, 58(3), 393–409. https://doi.org/10.1108/md-03-2017-0278
Kotter. (2021, May 7). The 8-Step Process for Leading Change. https://www.kotterinc.com/8-steps-process-for-leading-change/
Sipes, C. (2020). Project management for the advanced practice nurse. http://dl1.tarjomac.ir/nursing-ebooks/TPC202202.pdf
