Sustainable Change

In my last post, I touched on the subject of Sustainability.  Sustainability in that scenario looked at the Environmental, Social and Economic impacts in a broad sense.  This post then got me thinking about the concept of sustainable change within an organization.  How should an organization approach change so that it sticks?!

Lets start with Change Management.  The overall concept of Change Management is all about behavioural modification from one accepted norm to another.  It is the process of how we get people from one defined behaviour pattern to the other while engaging them and ensuring their acceptance of the change.  Also, it is ensuring that the change is able to endure long term.

One change management technique or engagement technique would be to use sustainability parameters (environmental, economic, social) to get people involved in process.  One example of this could be the simple implementation of a recycling program.  The project could start with people encouraging others to recycle.... then build on this for more complex processes such as waste management and proper disposal.  Then build on that again.... (I could go on)

Essentially what we are doing is creating a more complex project by layers and changing behaviour in a slow and sustainable manner. 

• This does a few things-> gives people a cause to rally around, gives them pride for their contributions, creates a social discussion point, allows for employee creativity to contribute to the change process and therefore engages them in the change, saves the company money and allows the company a potential marketing cache...

Two things here. 
#1 - Change does not happen over night
#2 - The Change Process needs to be realistic 

Too often a change management process is pushed through an organization quickly because it needs to be done and the behaviour just goes back to what it was because the foundational steps were not taken to first start with a "tester" project and create the momentum to change.