A change manager's role centers on people - how they experience and contribute to change.
The scope of a Change Managers role
Project and change activities are often delivered by two different parties and using different methods.
Tangible change is created by experts, often formed into project teams, who include IT developers, software engineers, HR experts in organisation re-design, business analysts who assess the effectiveness of processes and other professionals, depending on the type of change we are trying to achieve. Whatever their role, their objective is to create the deliverables according to technical quality standards. They are often incentivized and/or performance managed on their ability to deliver on time and on budget with the minimum number of errors.
Behavioural change can only be achieved by individuals deciding that they will start doing things differently. This means those responsible for behavioural change are those required to work in a new way and incorporate the tangible changes into their ways of working. It is a conscious decision to ‘forget’ old habits and to start practising new ways of working.
Behavioural change is much harder to predict than the creation of tangible change because it is a psychological and emotional process that doesn’t follow a linear path. Everyone sees change differently, some greeting it with enthusiasm, full of opportunities and advantages, and some seeing it as a threat to their current ability and status.
This means that achieving change involves a broad range of roles, so working in change means you are at the centre of your organisation, which is one of the reasons why this job is so much fun. Every day you get to work with someone different.
The role of a Change Manager
There are two essential qualities that will enable you to excel as a Change Manager:
- Is personally committed to ensuring the change is a success
- Has strong relationships and a high level of credibility with all those impacted by the change.
Responsibilities of a Change Manager
To fulfil these requirements, some example responsibilities for your role include:
- Using specialist knowledge to contribute to the definition of business need and the description of the change that will meet this need
- Comparing change activities against the organisations strategic objectives to prioritise the work to deliver the greatest business value
- Committing the time and energy needed to repeatedly explain the scope, impact and benefits of the change to all those involved, and where relevant incorporating their feedback into the change activities.
- Willingly and pro-actively providing support and guidance to all those involved in making the change a reality
- Demonstrating leadership of the change by modelling the behaviours expected as part of the new ways of working
- Applying the governance arrangements and developing effective working relationships with the Change Sponsor and others in decision making roles
- Identifying and applying measures that prove that the change has realised benefits
- Coordinating all of the change activities from all of the participants to create a comprehensive picture of progress, issues and risks
- Escalating issues to the appropriate person and working with them to ensure they are resolved.
A Typical Day as a Change Manager: Real-Life Insights
One thing is for sure, there are no typical days for a Change Manager. To give you some ideas about what to expect, I asked a couple of my friends to share the activities from one of their days:
| Example One | Example Two |
|---|---|
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8.00: Answered emails 9.00: Attended project team stand-up meeting to hear the progress and issues associated with the system development, heard how the team need validation of some of the data they are inputting to the system 9.30: Spent an hour at my desk creating the agenda and activities for a process design workshop, and emailed agenda to all the attendees 10.30: Meet with team leaders whose teams are impacted by the new system - gave them an update on the system issues, shared the request for data validation, asked for volunteers to help the project team 11.00: Had a meeting with the Sponsor, agreed that the Sponsor would attend first 10 minutes of the workshop to champion the importance of creating new streamlined workflows and to get the most out of the system 11.30: Typed up the results of flipcharts from previous workshop, created visuals to capture their ideas and added notes to ensure all steps of the process are clear 13.30: Lunch and informal catch up with colleagues 14.30: Emails 15.30: Spent an hour at my desk sending emails to thank people for attending previous workshop and providing link to the materials for them to review and validate 16.30: More emails and planning for next day. |
8.30: General admin, email and teams message responses 9.30: Informal catch up with team 10.00: Worked on some stakeholder communications 10.30: Attended Project Manager catch up meeting on IT projects 11.00: Focused work on strategy 12.30: Walk and lunch 1.00: Internal social media post on Change training 1.30: Preparation and technical check for Change and Engagement network meeting 2.00: Facilitation of one hour network meeting 3.00: Wrap up and followed up on issues and questions from meeting 3.30: Reviewed the work plan for the end of the quarter to ensure all things promised were delivered, or explanatory notes were made.
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The biggest challenge for Change Managers
A recent survey from the Change Capability Community found that 37% of respondents believed their biggest challenge came from the overwhelming volume of change taking place in their organisation. The 2024 global Change Capability Survey found that only 20% of change professionals believed their organisation has enough resources to manage the volume of change that is taking place.
The value of effective Change Management
Change managers are essential for ensuring that the expected benefits from any change are realised. This is a good starting point, but our contribution is much greater than this.
Benefits of becoming accredited
- Increased Employability: Gaining a qualification demonstrates competence and boosts your confidence during challenging times.
- Confidence in Role: You have a better understanding of the context for your work, which means you are confident about what you have to achieve and the value you are creating.
- Improved Job Performance: Better communication, increased influence, and credibility lead to more successful changes, which means you deliver on your job description and gain the respect of your colleagues.
- Impactful Work Contribution: Being part of meaningful changes and leaving a legacy of successful projects enhances your professional profile.
- Enhanced Leadership: Improved knowledge and experience make you more persuasive and credible, enabling better guidance for others.
- Achievement of Personal Goals: Attending training and achieving internationally recognised accreditations helps you in reaching your personal career goals, upskilling you for future opportunities.
- Personal Development: As an accredited change professional, you increase your credibility with those impacted by change, and you have the enjoyment of stretching yourself to learn more and do more, acquiring valuable experience that increases your employability.
- Empathy and Understanding: Greater empathy for others' perspectives increases your ability to build trusting relationships and reduces resistance to change. This reduces the stress and friction of adopting new ways of working.
- Future-Readiness: Developing relevant skills and knowledge prepares you for future challenges and opportunities. This is especially important as work keeps changing, and the new roles that are coming on stream as a result of the adoption of AI and increased digitisation.
- Adaptability: Your ability to understand change and how to achieve it means you are best placed to respond quickly and effectively to the transformation taking place in your organisation.
Change Managers have to lead by example. Change means learning new ways of working, so there is a close alignment between our work and learning and development. We need to build training programmes to help those affected by change learn new procedures, systems and techniques. To be an authentic leader, we need to demonstrate that we are also willing to learn new things, so this recent survey from the Change Capability Community showing how recently Change Managers in this community updated their qualifications is not a surprise:
- 59% in the last year
- 12% in the last 2 years
- 10% in the last 3 years
- 19% more than 3 years ago.
Skills required in Change Management
I could provide you with a list of skills and competencies that you must fulfil to be an effective Change Manager but this list is very long, because our role is at the heart of everything that is happening in our organisations. This means we need leadership and management skills, specialist expertise in change and transformation, excellent communication skills and high levels of emotional intelligence to build productive relationships. Here are just a few of the areas that Change Managers need to master:
Establishing the scope of the change
- Techniques for structured break down of work
- Challenging the status quo
- Aligning the scope to the wider picture
- PESTLE and SWOT analysis
- Context maps
- Accepting uncertainty
- Creating a plan but remaining open to new ideas
- Horizon scanning and responding to change.
Absence of strategic thinking:
- Implementing the wrong change
- Implementing out of date change.
Clearly defined approach
Applying a structured change management approach and methodology
- Lean thinking
- Project management methods
- Measuring the value of your work
- Change readiness assessment
- Impact assessment
- Measuring the realisation of benefits.
Absence of clearly defined approach:
- Loss of confidence in your ability
- Greater challenge, slower progress.
Collaboration and facilitation
- Assessing and defining your change network
- Identifying and segmenting your stakeholders
- Appreciating their needs
- Relationship building – where you spend the most time!
- Research, progress tracking, reviewing scope so you know what questions to ask
- Event planning skills to ensure facilitation is frequent, well planned and involves the right people.
Absence of collaboration and facilitation:
- Insufficient participation, change at surface level
- No buy-in for the change.
Resilience
- Ability to keep going, even in the face of strong opposition
- Maintenance of energy and enthusiasm throughout the duration of the change initiative
- Continually offer a range of practical, pragmatic ideas, opportunities and solutions that inspire those impacted by change
- Willingness to continue to learn and to challenge your own thinking.
Absence of resilience:
- Stress and emotional distress
- Inability to complete the change.
Conclusion
Being a change manager is an endlessly challenging and exciting role. It is a critical leadership position, growing in importance as organisations continue to grow the volume of changes that are happening in every part of their business, at the same time.
The skills and experiences you develop are relevant for all leadership roles, so investing in your ability as a Change Manager is not only a rewarding career in its own right but opens up a multitude of possibilities for the future.
