Introduction
An organisational approach that ensures transformation of teams, individuals, and organisations to ensure sustained efforts towards the accomplishment of particular goals is termed change management. Processes that are involved in change management must be consistent to guarantee long-term results that are fruitful.
Change management is implemented due to the current innovation and improvement in technology that is required for various business entities. Technology significantly influences change in management due to the urge to incorporate innovations in the operational environment to improve production efficiency.
The pace of innovation amidst various competitive factors results in the creation of a need to improve the features and techniques that heighten the production with minimal costs. As a result, many companies opt to adapt the competitive market due to change management.
Communication is a critical aspect of change management that is driven by technological advancement. Communication channels that are implemented in the organisational system significantly influence most interdepartmental collaborations and the creation of powerful teams.
This article elaborates the critical success factors in change management with a view of providing an insight into the role of efficient communication in modern organisations.
Critical Success Factors for Change Management
Critical success factors (CSF) are the activities or elements that are implemented in the organisation to ensure that stipulated objectives or missions are accomplished (Hong & Kim 2002). Most business enterprises have been implementing various success factors to improve change management approaches.
Such factors include the purpose for change, efficient leadership, implementing powerful engagement processes, engaging committed sponsors in the business, improvement of personal connections, performance sustainability, sharing vision, and efficient communication (Hong & Kim 2002).
Sharing Change Purpose
The leaders of an organisation must ensure that the needs for change and purpose are communicated to the staff, stakeholders, and investors among others.
The managers should embrace motivation among the employees and other people to buy-in their idea that should sway their attention towards commitment in the change process (Yew 2005).
Change Leadership that is Powerful
The top management must ensure that robust networks exist among the change leaders to accomplish the change management process efficiently.
The change process must be driven under the leadership of a CEO, who must set priorities, define the organisation’s vision, and avail the resources that are required for sustained achievement (Yew 2005).
Therefore, the top management and leadership system must agree on various change techniques that are to be implemented. The two elements must work together towards accomplishment of the defined objectives and vision (Yew 2005).
Embracing Engagement
Managers should engage people in proper communication to ensure the provision of accurate information on the change plans. The managers should play a critical role in motivating employees by improving their skills through on-job training and seminars among others (Yew 2005).
Encourage Sponsors
Top leaders, front-line, and middle managers should embrace the idea of including sponsors in the change management process.
The sponsors must be in contact with various management levels, especially the front-line and middle managers who play a critical role in ensuring proper engagement and commitment to change management techniques (Yew 2005). Sponsors also help the top management by providing adequate resources.
In addition, they redefine objectives and competencies that are not well defined to ensure that the right personnel are hired to execute the change management processes.
Sponsors who are well connected such as politicians and consultants play a critical role in soliciting resources, and provision of efficient navigation directions and plans to be implemented (Yew 2005).
Robust Networks (Connections)
Staff and managers should embrace teamwork and connections within and outside the company. Powerful personal connections lead to skilfulness, change in thinking and behaviour, and efficient delivery of the outcome due to individual commitment.
The behaviours of employees are changed in terms of attitude and values. Such connections eradicate some hidden actions or plans that lead to collective performance (Todnem 2005).
Embracing improved and continuous individual performance
Adaptation is paramount to change management. Managers must ensure that personnel are assisted to adapt to the change that is being implemented efficiently.
Assistance that is accorded to employees leads to minimisation of errors and disruptions. It also enhances performance and proper embracement of continuous transition (Todnem 2005).
Sharing Vision
Proper management in the change process should encourage vision sharing. Most personnel and managers have their individual visions and objectives. These objectives must be in line with the company’s vision to ensure successful realisation of the outcome.
Improved morale due to the personal commitment is evident in organisations where visions are shared amongst the staff (Todnem 2005).
Efficient Communication
Communication that follows top-down, bottom-top and parallel approaches should be encouraged. The managers’ directives must be conveyed through efficient communication continuously, consistently, clearly, and repetitively to ensure clarity.
The management must ensure that it holds constant meetings with the employees as well as the interdepartmental meetings. This set of circumstances shows involvement of the employees in the activities that are carried out within the organisation.
Proper and consistent communication improves transparency, honesty, and delivery of updated information among the personnel who are involved in the day-to-day activities of the organisation (Trkman 2010).
Embracing a comprehensive approach
The top management must ensure that a master plan exists when effecting change management. The plan must address issues that are concerned with the company’s culture, motivation, reward systems, strategies, staffing processes, and structure to be implemented.
These activities must be linked together in a continuous manner (Trkman 2010).
Involvement of Employees
Change management requires collective participation in the different departments of an organisation. Employees must participation teamwork activities that lead to improved performance.
This practice encourages the spirit of improvement through skill development, problem-solving, and value-added performance at individual, team, and organisational levels. Employees who work as a team ensure that the required quality is achieved (Todnem 2005).
Empowering employees is also an important aspect that is addressed through involvement in teamwork activities. The top management provides directions that are executed at the team level. The employees are greatly empowered through elimination of management layers that interfere with the flow of decisions (Todnem 2005).
A leader who gives directions, priorities, and ensures that facilitation is enhanced manages each team. Employees attain a position to solve problems and implement independent decisions.
This situation brings about a sense of ownership among the employees. They also learn new skills that are paramount to organisational development (Todnem 2005).
Managers also encourage teamwork and employee involvement through training on conflict resolutions and stress management techniques among other relevant courses that promote their personal development (Todnem 2005). Proper employee training leads to the development of change teams.
The team ensures that a proper analysis is done for the change process. It also guarantees efficient use of the allocated resources by identify and analysing various implementation methods that are riskier (Jarrar et al. 2000).
The role of Effective Communication
Communication plays a vital role in any activity or endeavour that a person undertakes. Issues that pertain to report writing, interview, teamwork, and passage of information to colleagues in a discussion among others require efficient communication.
Efficient communication in modern business development ensures more and quality delivery of outcomes with minimal actions (Suter et al. 2009).
An efficient communicator must adhere to rules that guide communication cues. Such rules include adherence to the use of words, delivery of these words at a favourable speed, modulation of pitch, and correct use of body language.
A communicator must ensure that correct tools are used to communicate the right information or message at the required time and place. This situation prevents information crises. It results in motivation towards success (Suter et al. 2009).
According to Griffith (2003), current technology has significantly improved communication by ensuring that information is delivered qualitatively. In most companies, about 75 percent of the operations are completed successfully due to efficient communication.
This set of circumstances is accomplished through involvement in interpersonal, intergroup, and/or teamwork communication (Griffith 2003). A primary aspect of employability is the ability to communicate efficiently. This situation implies that an employee must possess high skills of passing information from one person to another.
Practicing efficient communication improves competence, confidence, and performance among other advantages (Griffith 2003). Highly performing groups in an organisation owe their success to efficient communication among the employees and leaders.
Companies that experience increased employee turnovers realise that poor communication is one of the contributors to such trends. For example, managers should motivate employees through efficient communication by striving to understand their personal needs and the roles they play in the organisation (Griffith 2003).
The success of any organisation is based on efficient communication where supervisors and employees exhibit conformity to rules and minimal misunderstanding, friction, and time wastage among others.
Efficient communication ensures that employees understand how their efforts contribute to productivity. It promotes the understanding of customer needs that in turn improves the ease of transaction (Griffith 2003).
Efficient Communication for an Individual’s Success
People ensure that they efficiently communicate their ideas through implementing various approaches that include holding relationships, ensuring clear thinking and clarity, keeping open to people’s ideas, taking responsibility when communicating, and ensuring transparency (Leonard, Graham, & Bonacum 2004).
Efficient communication benefits through the following ways.
Career success
Efficient communication plays an important role in pursuing of competitive careers. It increases the degree of employability and chances getting a promotion.
The employee develops personal relationships with fellow workers. Group discussions also enhance teamwork spirits that ensure quick delivery of relevant information by minimising time wastage. Leaders in the group level experience excellence due to resourceful communication (Fui-Hoon, Lee-Shang, & Kuang 2001).
Interviews
In addition, effectual communication is crucial in interviews where communication and interaction are required between the interviewer and interviewee. Interviews can take the form of personal, subject, or group discussions.
The main aspects of interviews are to test the intellectual aspects and skills that are required for efficient passage of information, skills required for language, personal attributes, and behaviours. Most interviewers make judgements based on the response and non-verbal cues that are expressed by the interviewee.
Therefore, resourceful transfer of relevant information from one source to another increases the chances of seizing a job opportunity (Fui-Hoon, Lee-Shang, & Kuang 2001).
Improved Relationship
Efficient communication ensures individual productivity. This situation leads to improved concentration that reduces tension amongst workers. Many employees experience interpersonal tension due to resourceful communication. Tensions are caused through misunderstanding amongst workers.
Although such situations are hard to forget, efficient resolution seeking approaches can encourage the employees to get involved in activities that are more productive.
The relationship among individuals is enhanced through efficient communication. This situation results in the development of trust amongst the employees and their leaders (Fui-Hoon, Lee-Shang, & Kuang 2001).
Chance to grab Opportunities
Individuals who are good communicators tend to grab more job or business opportunities. On the other hand, inefficient communication leads to missed opportunities and bad recommendations for future employment (Fui-Hoon, Lee-Shang, & Kuang 2001). Most employees who fail to seize opportunities lose motivation.
This state of events results in reduced productivity. Opportunities are also lost due to time wastage that arises from inefficient communication. Completion of activities that are scheduled to be completed within a specified period takes a longer time that expected.
This situation leads to procrastination of other activities and in the end production is reduced (Fui-Hoon, Lee-Shang, & Kuang 2001).
Role of efficient communication to success of an organisation
Many managers appreciate the effect of communication on productivity.
A survey that was done by Forbes Insights in 2010 to study the adaptation to corporate strategies in the wake of changing economies indicated that about 90-percent of managers and CEOs agree that efficient communication led to the success of various strategic plans and processes that were executed.
A separate research that was conducted by the PMI indicated that approximately 60-percent of the project managers appreciated the effect of resourceful communication on various organisations (Nenni, Boccardelli, & Napolitano 2014). The managers considered efficient communication as a critical factor for success in their organisations.
Company projects and programmes demand competent communication as a core skill for the managers and employees. A properly executed communication strategy concerning the strategies, goals, and activities results in improved accomplishment of organisational targets (Nenni, Boccardelli, & Napolitano 2014).
A report that was released by the PMI in 2013 revealed that the organisations’ abilities to beat deadlines and implement budgets among others were ensured through efficient communication.
Indeed, communication facilitates urgent addressing of various techniques that are required for improved success rates and smooth flow of activities (Nenni, Boccardelli, & Napolitano 2014). Long-term profitability of an organisation is dependent on efficient communication as a success factor (Nenni, Boccardelli, & Napolitano 2014).
Improved communication maximises success and minimises risk
Efficient communication ensures handling of more projects successfully. Most managers who are rated as high performers are efficient communicators. A report that was released by the Pulse study indicated that high performers are about three times more efficient in communication than low performers.
The report further revealed that organisations that embrace efficient communication strategies reduce the risks of losing funds due to time wastage. Managers who are high performers ensure efficient communication of issues concerning projects, objectives, budgets, and benefits among others (Johnson et al. 2003).
Through well-timed information, managers also ensure that clear and detailed project results are delivered timely.
When higher performers are compared to low performers, it is realised that such managers exhibit some distinct characters that include the ability to ensure that communication gaps are closed in the organisation and provision of tailored communications to various stakeholder groups.
The managers appreciate the management processes and communication channels that executed to ensure a successful accomplishment of organisational goals.
Fostering Team Building and Teamwork in the Organisation
Communication encourages team building and teamwork. Collaboration ensures faster means of arriving at solutions to perceived problems. It enables workers to identify foreseen problems and seek solutions with a view of alleviating them to ensure a steady flow of work and improved productivity.
Another importance of efficient communication among workers in teams includes improved marketing of the company’s projects and the reduction of employee turnover rates (Johnson et al. 2003).
Fostering Relationship among Companies
Most companies perform better due to the relationship that exists between them and other companies. Various stakeholders get insights from forums or seminars.
The relationship with customers, employees, shareholders, suppliers, and the market is also enhanced through efficient communication that is practised by the management. This situation improves the image and performance of the entity (Johnson et al. 2003).
Improved Marketing
Brands of products that are released to the market can be identified or appreciated through proper marketing. Marketing of the company’s name and products is accomplished by establishing proper communication channels between distributors and consumers.
The information about the company name and its products that is displayed in advertisements plays a critical role in the improvement of sales. In this manner, communication creates a favourable atmosphere for advertisement of the enterprise (Johnson et al. 2003).
Regain of Trust
Efficient communication is critical for companies that have lost trust in the public domain. Consumer confidence can be regained through efficient communication through the managers and employees as well as the media.
The management must ensure that unhealthy competition in the market that destroys the reputation of the company is controlled by proper ethics. Maintaining a positive attitude when communicating through the media, advertisement rebuilds trust.
Through communication, public relations are significantly improved. This situation leads to improved development of the company because of increased marketing (Johnson et al. 2003).
Summary
Change management is an organisational approach that requires participation and support of leaders. Successful change management requires good leadership through efficient implementation of success factors to change.
Success in an organisation is based on proper implementation of critical factors that lead to improvement of productivity and delivery of services among others. It is noted that companies fail to implement the aspects of change management due to the inability to implement communication strategies.
Successful managers execute change management employees among other stakeholders in the planning processes and change processes. When success factors are considered in change management, the results that are achieved include reduced employee turnover, increased rate of change, and improved production.
Various success factors for change management include an efficient sponsorship, employee support, and engagement of exceptional technicians in the process. This situation ensures that the required skills are utilised in the change process.
Implementation of efficient and continuous communication has been noted as a crucial success factor for the accomplishment of both individual and organisational goals. The communication should be consistent, timely, and transparent.
In addition, it should reach the targeted recipient without distortion. Resourceful communication ensures proper marketing and improved reputation of the entity.
Conclusion
The article has elaborated the critical success factors for change management. It has also provided an insight into the role of efficient communication in contemporary organisations. It is clearly noted that change management can be achieved through successful implementation of success factors.
A number of researchers, managers, and business professional attest that competent communication strategies are paramount to the success of change processes. Performing managers embrace efficient communication within their entities to ensure that proper change management is implemented.
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