OCM Services

Engage-to-Change®

Merit's approach to leading and managing organizational change is founded on the principle that people don't resist change as much as they resist being changed. In fact, in our experience, when people are thoroughly engaged in organizational changes that impact them, they are far more likely to be innovative, energized and productive — indeed, they will willingly help craft and drive the change. Engage-to-Change ® is a leadership philosophy, supported by a set of methods and tools that help make an organization more adaptable to change by engaging employees in specific ways. This approach not only improves employee engagement and satisfaction but also creates a more responsive and adaptable organization. Ultimately, this has the potential to shape organizational culture in a manner that contributes to financial performance.

Change Impact Analyses

A Change Impact Analysis is a deep-dive into how the change will impact the organization and its people. This may involve the identification of new skills, numbers of people required, business process changes, organizational structure and systems changes or changes to organizational culture. Developing this understanding is the cornerstone of beginning any large-scale initiative such as ERP/IT implementations, business process changes, culture change and so on. All other change activities and deliverables build on this knowledge. The Impact Analysis is typically conducted by first gaining a deep understanding of the nature of the change, the various stakeholder groups being impacted and thereafter by conducting a series of individual or group interviews and discussions with subject matter experts in impacted business functions. The Change Impact Analysis also investigates the culture of the organization (for example, its history and current experience with change projects), its adaptability, organizational capacity for change and reasons why the change may be resisted or undermined.

Change Management Strategy Development

A Change Strategy is developed from the deep insight gained in the Change Impact Analysis. The Strategy is usually structured around the "levers of change", namely leadership and sponsorship of change, the compelling business case for change, communicating change, learning and skills development, stakeholder engagement, business processes and procedures, measurement and recognition for success and developing coalitions and partnerships to drive change. The Change strategy provides the overall roadmap for what the change will involve and provides an integrated roadmap for all stakeholders of what the change will look like.

Organization Culture Change

Changing organizational culture is one of the most difficult changes a company can embark on. But culture does not change by altering the corporate mission, vision and values statements, nor even changing key leaders and managers to individuals who "walk-the-new-talk". Culture will only fundamentally change in a sustainable way when "the way work gets done" changes as well - and middle managers and supervisors are convinced of the business case for the change and take ownership of championing the change with their teams. Merit's approach to culture change (see Retail Banking Case Study) not only focuses on driving culture change through leadership behaviors, changes to a company's mission, vision and values statements supported by new business strategies, but by also identifying those business processes that define how work gets done on a day to day basis. Only by making specific changes at the work procedure level will the new elements of culture become firmly embedded and new behaviors be enabled.

Change Management in a projects setting

Most large-scale change initiatives are conducted within a project structure and discipline. Merit Resource Group has developed its Change Management Methodology and Tools based on 20 years experience working with large, global companies. Merit's Change Management approach can either adapt to an existing project methodology or it can customize and scale a change management methodology to suit the organization's needs. Merit's change management methods and tools are scalable and applicable to any sized project and come with their own proprietary "Change Management Roadmap" which is customizable and flexible.

Leading Change for Mergers and Acquisitions

Mergers and acquisitions are undoubtedly amongst the most difficult organizational changes to manage. Acquisitions often involve large numbers of employees being integrated into an existing company culture often with well established vision, values, behaviors and norms. Mergers, while being more equitable on the one hand, can have the challenge of creating a new company culture with its vision, values and behaviors from the ground up. In both scenarios, the risks of declining productivity, poor performance, potential loss of top performing talent and low morale require that these events receive intense focus in guiding employees through the change. While each of these must be managed differently, each has the challenge that employee performance must be maintained (Interestingly, many of the same challenges can be experienced when internal functions and departments in large companies are merged or integrated).

Merit Resource Group has applied a "strategic alignment" approach to the merger of five companies to form the largest content management company in Africa with significant success. This approach involves a "Leading Change" vision and goals approach and an intensive "Employee Engagement" process of how-to-get-there planning. This approach is very effective in maintaining a focus on performance while allowing employees to be actively engaged in defining the best way to achieve results through optimizing work processes, deliverables and effective teamwork.

Consultation to companies on becoming change ready

Change has changed! Most organizations mobilize their organizations for change only when there is a large scale project on the go. This is almost always too late. Particularly when different consulting groups, systems integrators and multiple business units are involved, projects can become very inefficient and costly. Merit helps organizations become "change ready" in advance of, or in parallel to, large-scale projects beginning. Depending on the organization's needs, this may involve building an awareness for how change typically is managed within a project setting or providing people with simple skills on how to analyze and optimize their own work processes so that this is not a foreign concept when change projects eventually impact them. It may also include providing some basic concepts, methods and tools for managing smaller change projects. This approach also looks at existing programs or initiatives that can be leveraged to support change (for example, organizations that have implemented Six Sigma or Lean or have programs that recognize and reward innovation).

Change communications

With change projects, sometimes "less is more". Communicating change initiatives can be (and usually is) very different from corporate communications or holding events and functions. It can be a mistake to think that the corporate communications (or events and functions) departments can simply take up responsibility for communicating change initiatives to impacted stakeholder groups. Merit Resource Group has deep expertise in understanding what the change is about, developing a change strategy and then communicating the change in a way that maximizes a positive response by impacted groups, and minimizes resistance and possible obstruction.

Management of skills training

Merit Resource Group partners with instructional design affiliates or with internal training or learning functions within client organizations. Where needed, Merit will develop the overall learning and training plan and can also provide management and monitoring for deployment effectiveness.

Leading Change training for leaders and project sponsors

Not even the most effective change strategy or plan will be successful if project sponsors and leaders are not skilled in how to lead change. Merit Resource Group provides customized training programs and individual coaching to sponsors and leaders on the concepts, skills and tools for being more effective change leaders.

Business (work) Procedures

Our clients are often surprised by this - at first. Procedure analysis and documentation (technical writing) is seldom considered the domain of organizational change management. However, change is often centered on changes to how people work - work procedures - and organizations seldom have the capability or capacity to analyze and document these procedures. Thoroughly documented work procedures are always the starting point for the development of training modules. If these procedures are not available, instructional designers or training developers are forced to step beyond their scope of operation (and often beyond their expertise) into the realm of technical writing. This can dramatically slow down the development of training materials and the change effort. Merit Resource Group has a group of highly experienced technical writers in its affiliate network that work very effectively in support of change projects and alongside learning/training organizations.

Training and coaching for individuals on being more adaptable to change in the workplace

One of the cornerstones of becoming a more adaptable organization is for key employees (and ideally all employees) to learn the basics of how to deal with organizational change. Employees can learn not to fear change when they understand it and are able to respond in a more constructive manner, and even facilitate change themselves or in their teams. This can take the form of small group training sessions, or individual coaching.

Helping Organizations build and staff a Change Management function

Whether it is to support a single project or within an organization's Project Management Office, Merit Resource Group has deep experience designing and building change management functions to support the unique needs of an organization. This may include an entirely new organization or functional design, along with specific methods and tools to ramp up quickly. Merit's approach is to transfer knowledge to internal managers and specialists where applicable (versus the organization always being dependent on external consultants whenever a new large-scale project is commissioned). We even assist some clients in the staffing of key positions carry on the change management role after we leave.