5 Change Management Models to Take a Look at Page 1 of 13

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5 Change Management Models to Take a Look

at
Nov 26, 2019 ▪ Approx. 8 min. read

Based on organizational goals and culture, companies implement various

change management models. Choosing the right model, however, may be
a...

Based on organizational goals and culture, companies implement various change

management models. Choosing the right model, however, may be a challenge.

In this blog post, we will go over some of the most popular models for change
management.

Why Choosing the Right Change Management

Model is Important

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Effective change management is a challenge that most organizations face today.

The times when stability and predictability were the main business priorities are
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over!

💡Internal communication is critical in change management. Download our free

eBook "Building a Better Company with Internal Communications" and learn how
to leverage your internal communication to drive change.

Market transparency, labor mobility, globalization, instantaneous communications

and access to information force us to get out of our comfort zones and make
changes within our organizations.

Change management is the process when organization undertake projects or

initiatives to improve current performance, seize new opportunities or
address key issues.

These efforts often require changes to business processes, job roles, organizational
structures and technologies used.

Even though different groups within organizations may look at change management
differently, it is extremely important to always address the human side of change
in organizational contexts.

Therefore, remember that employee communication is the key for effective

change management.

Your people and their resistance to change are the main reason to evaluate
different change management models to implement.

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Since every organization has different company values, culture, goals and change
objectives, not every change management model fits all.

Let’s take a look into a few change management models for you to consider.

Top 5 Change Management Models to

Consider
In order to implement changes such as digital transformation or smoothly
transition during mergers and acquisitions, it is important to structure the whole
project.

In order to do so, it is useful to follow existing change management models.

Let’s take a look into the 5 most popular change management models.

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1. Kotter’s Change Management Model

Kotter’s change management theory is one of the most popular and adopted ones in
the world.

This model has eight stages and every one of them focuses on employees’
response to change.

• Increase urgency – Creating a sense of urgency among employees may be

the best driver for employees’ motivation and engagement.
• Build the team – Determine the right set of skills and personalities for the
team that will be most likely to drive change within the organization.
• Get the vision correct – Take into account not just the strategy, but also
employees' creativity, emotions and project's objectives.
• Communicate – Be transparent and frequently communicate with people
about the changes being implemented.
• Get things moving – Get support, remove the roadblocks and implement
feedback in a constructive way.
• Focus on short term goals – Don’t just focus on the end result. Set small
goals and recognize small achievements to boost employee morale.
• Don’t give up – Changes don’t happen overnight, and obstacles are
unavoidable. Be persistent while the process of change management is
going on, no matter how tough things may seem.

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• Incorporate change – Reinforce and make the change a part of the

workplace culture. Help employees adjust, and reward them ALL
for the new
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behaviors.

Why we like this model?

Kotter’s change management model is pretty easy to follow and incorporate. Our
favorite part of this model is that it focuses on preparing employees for change
rather than change implementation itself.

The focus on human experience and proper workplace communication are the
reasons why this is one of the most commonly used change management models.

2. McKinsey 7-S Change Management Model

McKinsey 7-S framework or model is one of the longest lasting change
management models out there.

This model consists of 7 crucial categories that companies should be aware of

when implementing change.

• Strategy – Strategy is the change management plan that should consist of

a step-by-step procedure or future plan.
• Structure – This factor is related to the structure in which the organization
is divided or the structure it follows.
• Systems – This stage focuses on the systems that will be used to complete
day-to-day tasks and activities.
• Shared values – Shared values refer to the core or main values of an
organization according to which it runs or works.
• Style – The manner in which the changes and leadership are adopted or
implemented is known as ‘style’.
• Staff – The staff refers to the workforce or employees and their working
capabilities.
• Skills – The competencies as well as other skills possessed by the
employees working in the organization.

Why we like this model?

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Unlike most other models, this model focuses on all the important factors that
the change may have an influence or effect on. ALL ARTICLES

While most other models represent some kind of a process or workflow, McKinsey’s
model simply reminds us on all the business aspects that should be defined before
the change is being implemented.

3. ADKAR Change Management Model

ADKAR model can be used by Change Managers to find out various gaps in the
process so that effective training can be offered to the employees.

Even though ADKAR model focuses on the business oriented goals, it can be very
useful to support employees to more easily go through the process of
change.

ADKAR Model stands for:

• Awareness – of the need and requirement for change

• Desire – to bring about change and be a participant in it
• Knowledge – of how to bring about this change
• Ability – to incorporate the change on a regular basis
• Reinforcement – to keep it implemented and reinforced later on as well.

Why we like this model?

This change management model is a great solution for companies that are trying to
look at both business dimensions of change as well as people dimensions of
change.

Unlike other change management models, this model focuses on the identification
and evaluation of the reasons why changes made are not working and why
desired results are not being obtained.

4. Kübler-Ross Five Stage Change Management Model

This model is different from the others in a sense that is 100% employee
oriented. The model can also be applied to other life situations such as loss of job,
changes in work and other less serious health conditions.

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This model helps employers understand better their employees and empathize
with them. This model consists of five stages through which your employees may
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be going during organizational changes.

• Denial – In this stage, employees are not willing to or unable to accept the
news. This happens because most people show resistance towards change
and may not want to believe what is happening.
• Anger – This model assumes that when the news first get absorbed, anger
follows. Denial converts into anger when employees realize that the change
will actually happen.
• Bargaining – During the bargaining stage, employees try to get to the best
possible solution out of the situation or circumstance. Bargaining is a way
for people to avoid ending up with the worst case scenario.
• Depression – When employees realize that bargaining is not working, they
may end up getting depressed and may lose faith. Some of the symptoms
include low energy, non-commitment, low motivation and lack of any kind of
excitement or happiness.
• Acceptance – When employees realize that there is no point in fighting
change any more, they may finally accept what is happening and may begin
to resign to it.

Why we like this model?

We love this change management model because of its focus on employees, their
feelings, fears and needs.

Organizations that manage to understand their employees better, they are much
more likely to eliminate some of the biggest barriers towards successful
change management.

Because most employees go through the above mentioned feelings, it is extremely

important to keep employees informed and to have an effective business
communication strategy.

5. Lewin’s Change Management Model

Lewin’s Change Management Model is one of the most popular, most accepted and
most effective change management models.

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It helps companies better understand organizational and structured change. This

model consists of three main stages which are: unfreeze, change and refreeze.
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• Unfreeze: This is a preparation stage in which employers must get

prepared for the change. Crucial here is open employee communication
explaining why the change is necessary. The goal is to overcome
employees’ resistance to change as much as possible.

• Change:This is the stage in which change gets implemented. Continuing on

the first stage, good leadership and effective employee communications
are crucial here.
• Refreeze: This is the stage in which changes are accepted and employees
go back to their routines.

This stage should be considered as almost ever-going. Leaders should make sure
that changes are adopted and used even after the change management objectives
have been achieved.

Why we like this model?

Lewin’s change management model in a very simple way describes the main 3
stages that every change management process has to go through: pre-change,
during change and posy-change.

Because of its simplicity, many organizations choose this model to follow when
implementing changes.

Why Organizational Changes Fail

In a research by PMI, of 256 companies that were surveyed, only 14% of them said
that change failures can be chalked up to company's inability to cope with
technology.

The other 86% of failures are related to these challenges:

• improperly defined objectives (17%),

• unfamiliar scope (17%),
• lack of effective communication (20%) and,

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• poor project management skills (32%)

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Employee Communication is the Center of

Every Change Management Model
Within organizations, change initiatives mostly come from the top down. However,
ultimately, it is the employees of your organization who have to change how
they do their jobs.

If these individuals are unsuccessful in their personal transitions, if they don’t

embrace and learn a new way of working, the initiative will fail.

On the other side, aligning employees with business goals is not an easy task.

As we saw from the above mentioned models, employee communication is the

central part of every change management model.

Without having your employees on board, changes are impossible to implement

successfully within organizations.

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Make Change Management More Successful

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with Smarp
As improper employee communication is one of the main reasons why change
management projects fail, companies now have to reconsider their internal
communications efforts and switch to new employee communication solutions.

Smarp, our employee communications platform, is designed to help organizations

be more effective in change management.

During change management processes, organizations mostly struggle to deliver

relevant information to their employees at the right time and to always keep them
connected.

Smarp’s mobile-first approach, personalized employee news feeds, user

friendliness and the ability to connect all the important information into one
place, are just some of the reasons why enterprise companies use it as their
primary mean of internal communication.

Schedule Smarp demo to see how it can help your streamline your change
management efforts and make them more successful by aligning all of your
employees.

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WRITTEN BY

Kristina Martic

Digital Marketing and Employer Branding

READ NEXT BLOG POST

G2 Creates New Category ‘Employee Communications’ with
Smarp

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