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Consulting - Managing Change

If we are to improve organisation performance then is it bound to involve change. Those actively engaged must therefore know how to manage change, and understand what we call the “Change Effectiveness Formula”.

QxA=E

This is a conceptual formula containing a model to explain what we all recognise happens in reality once it is understood. Any change in an organisation can be more or less effective, and this effectiveness is represented by ‘E’ in the formula. E is calculated to be the product of both the Quality of the change – the Q portion of the equation, and the Acceptance of the change – the A portion of the equation.

To obtain an effective outcome in any change programme requires not only a high quality solution (Q), but also for the solution to be accepted (A) into the organisation.

Let’s take an example. Say an organisation is seeking to implement a new way of assessing and rewarding its staff. It has spent a lot of time putting together a suitable scheme.

The scheme isn’t perfect but it gets a reasonable Q score of 7 out of 10.

However, the organisation does not consider how it will gain acceptance for the new scheme, it fails to provide strong leadership and the need for change is never properly communicated. It therefore scores only 2 for the A side of the equation and the culture does not change. As a result the new reward scheme is never properly implemented, and soon the organisation reverts to the old way of doing things.

According to our Change Effectiveness Formula, we would expect to see a change that was only 14% effective (7 out of 10 multiplied by 2 out of 10), or, a pretty ineffective change.

Managing change effectively requires an understanding of both Q and A sides of the equation. SigmaPro uses a number of approaches that consider the A side, ensuring that stakeholders and organisation culture are considered in the improvement programme, and giving the highest possible effectiveness for the change, meaning performance improvement that can be maintained.