Leading and managing change

at the University of Bath

Guidance and tool kit
change noun
1. an act or process through which something becomes different:
2. A transformation or transition from one state, condition, or phase to another:

Change is an ever-present and essential part of life, and the University a

constantly evolving organisation. While this can make it a dynamic and
vibrant place to work, change can present challenges for individuals
and groups, and needs to be expertly managed if we are to realise the
benefits of making changes at any scale.
These resources present a recommended approach to leading and managing change. The University
would expect anyone leading a change initiative to consider all the stages within this guidance and
use the tools provided appropriately, wherever possible, whatever the scale of change. The same
considerations apply for big, structural changes and for smaller adjustments in the pursuit of continual
improvement; people will still experience change, and will need help to experience it positively.
Where change is likely to impact on the employment, contracts and/or general terms and conditions
of staff, there is a legal requirement to consult formally with the recognised Trade Unions and the staff
involved. This is detailed in a separate policy, the Universitys Managing Organisational Change Policy
and Procedure although following the recommended approaches in this guidance for communication
and engagement may assist with this process. If there is any question of a possible change affecting
the employment, contracts and/or terms and conditions of staff, you must consult immediately with
your HR Manager who will advise you on the process to be followed.

Planning and Managing Change

Two key principles underpin effective change management:
1 People will be responsible for success or failure. Engaging stakeholders, involving staff in
planning and decision making, and communicating effectively are vital throughout the process.
2 Learning and providing opportunities for feedback will allow a dynamic, emergent approach
that is likely to be more successful than one which is rigidly planned and implemented without
flexibility.

Change Management Toolkit

A word of caution
Change is usually messy, non-linear and has unintended as well as planned consequences. Be
prepared to revisit any of these stages and learn from experience or new information, to modify
and adapt your approach and plans.
Change is also constant, and a necessary part of a continually improving organisation. It is
therefore a bit false always to think of change as an event, or even a project, but the concerns
and processes set out in these guidelines will still need to be taken into account.
Successful change management involves these stages:
1 Determining the need for change, triggered by on-going business analysis, changes to external
conditions, identification of new opportunities etc.
2 Developing a case for change, including options, risks and resource implications.
3 Communicating the vision for change, presenting a compelling narrative that sets out how the
new situation will be better.
4 Developing a strategy and plan for change, having clear project management procedures, clear
accountability, objectives and timelines.
5 Managing the change process, seeking tangible benefits and embedding new systems, processes
and cultures into every day activity.

Change Management Toolkit

Why Change?
Key factors
n There is no point in bringing in change for changes sake; however it is also critical that we take
action when there is a clear need for change.
n Many factors may signal a need for change; changes to the funding environment, the Universitys
strategic priorities, enhancement or obsolescence of technology, and so on.
n Some changes will be small scale and just part of the everyday business of continual improvement.
n This is not the time to produce the final, perfected solution, in fact it is damaging and highly risky to
do so without the involvement of the people who will be most affected (colleagues, staff, students,
other stakeholders).
n Involve people; change will be easier to implement and better solutions will be found.
So you think you need change, ask:
n Why are you thinking of change what are the reasons for it?
n What would you like to achieve by changing?
n What will happen if we dont change?
n If this change is imposed from above, do I understand and accept the reasoning behind it?
Seek to understand:
The impacts on staff, risks, costs, opportunities and benefits.
If there is any possibility of the changes you are considering affecting the employment, contracts
and/or terms and conditions of staff, you must speak directly and immediately with your HR Manager
who will advise you on the process to be followed right from the very beginning. This will allow these
essential requirements to be built into your overall change management approach. Formal consultation
(between employer and staff) is a legal requirement in these cases but will typically happen later.
Dont seek to have all the data at this stage but enough to start going to people to gain more
intelligence, test commitment and build a powerful guiding coalition of influential people (change
agents) who will be key to your success.

In other words: Start discussing now.

Talking and listening to people:
n saves you from your own potential wrong assumptions,
n protects you from the things you dont know.
n does not mean that you incorporate all their suggestions
n encourages trust which you will need when the going gets tough

Change Management Toolkit

But I dont want to start lots of rumours, and its too early to tell
people if we dont have a firm plan of action.
There is a balance to be struck between telling everybody everything straight away, and planning
change behind a veil of secrecy because you are afraid to set unrealistic expectations or cause panic.
But people appreciate honesty, and having their voice heard. It is possible to have conversations with
a wide spectrum of people which, if handled carefully, give you and them a chance to understand the
implications and feasibility of what you think needs doing. Consulting with people, and helping them to
see things from both sides generally throws up some very good ideas for doing things better than you
could have thought of by yourself. It may also give you a better chance of locating change agents that
you can recruit to the planning, communication and management of the change.

Change agents
Change agents are people who encourage and promote change in an organisation, by their
impact on processes and people. They may have formal change management roles, or may be
part of project teams or the wider workforce. Ideally good change agents:
n Believe change is possible and live in the future, not the past, with a focus on goals and
outcomes
n Are motivated and resilient when things go badly or slowly, and prepared to take calculated
risks
n Communicate well with a wide variety of people
n Are empathetic, and able to see things from others perspectives
n Are flexible and creative, prepared to try new things and think of different options
Among your stakeholders, who displays these some of these characteristics, and how can you
get them involved?

Specialists
In many change programmes you will need the help of specialists, for example human resources
(HR), health, safety & environment, information technologists, communications, finance etc. Get them
involved early in the process, to avoid planning something that proves problematic for legal or technical
reasons later, and to have the benefit of their expertise and experience.

Change Management Toolkit

Reasons and Stakeholders

Leaders can only successfully encourage change if they can
convincingly say: We cant go on like this, and heres why.
Key factors
n People will not align with bad aims, nor engage with a plan based on obviously flawed or unethical
reasoning.
n This is the time to set out where we are, where we need to be, and why. How the change will
happen comes later.
n By involving people, commitment and understanding builds and they tell you the things you didnt
know.
Incorporating specialist advice
Make sure that you build in the specialist advice that you have received in stage 1 so that all key
requirements are considered and met right from the beginning.
Connect with the collective intelligence
Tapping the collective intelligence of the organisation is a key part of modern change management.
You may not be connected to the front line activity; talk to people who are, and who are likely to be
most affected by the change you are considering.
Choosing a path requires detailed consideration of various options, including doing nothing. Various
tools exist to help formulate and think through different options, but the aim here is to present a
compelling rationale or business case to your stakeholders. To do this you need to understand who
your stakeholders are, and what their perspectives are on the potential change.
Stakeholders
A stakeholder is anyone with a legitimate interest in your activity, whether they be students, staff,
management, funders, the local community or anyone else.
Stakeholders have different roles, and have different degrees of influence, in your change process.
It can be helpful to analyse which stakeholders are particularly influential as enablers or blockers of
change, and be particularly careful about how you involve them.
Stakeholder analysis
n List everyone who has an interest in what youre proposing to change
n For each one, assess their level of interest in your proposed change (i.e. how likely are they to be
affected or have an opinion about it)
n Assess how influential they are; do they have the power to enable or prevent the change?
n If you dont know, make a plan to find out: who do you need to talk to?
n Position the stakeholders on the following grid

Change Management Toolkit

Influence/power of stakeholder

Meet their needs

Key player

n Engage and consult on area of

interest
n Try to increase level of interest
n Aim to move into right hand
box whats in it for them?

n Focus efforts on this group

n Involve in governance/
decision-making bodies
n Engage and consult regularly

Least important

Show consideration

n Inform via general

communications, emails,
website etc.
n Aim to move into right hand box

n Make use of interest through

involvement in low-risk areas
n Keep informed and consult on
interest area
n Potential supporter/ goodwill
ambassador

Interest of stakeholder
Generally you should seek to move stakeholders into the right hand boxes as shown. Which
stakeholders are your priorities, and how will you approach them?
Use your analysis to select stakeholders for involvement in the planning process, including
scenario planning for various possible futures.
Considerable judgement is involved in deciding how to involve particular individuals. For some,
a quiet word or a meeting over coffee will be enough to start the process, for others making a
presentation to a department meeting or calling together a group will be better.
Template for rationale/business case
Your aim in this stage is to collaboratively construct a case for change that is understood and accepted
by key stakeholders.
Use this template to focus your discussions around the key factors of:
Reasons Options Benefits expected Risks Costs Timescale Outcome/goal
If people affected by the change have been involved in constructing this business case, they are more
likely to understand the reasoning and to act as champions or at least not act as obstacles to the
change process.
Change imposed from above or outside
How can you ask people to support a change you dont believe in yourself? As a leader, it is
important that you remain positive and act as an advocate for the change, while acknowledging
and recognizing the concerns of the people affected. You should not convey your personal
negativity, but take your concerns to more senior managers privately. This may be difficult but is
an important organizational learning loop.

Change Management Toolkit

Vision and Communication

Where are we going, and why?
Key factors
n Being able to set out a compelling vision of the future is crucial, but equally important is the ability to
listen respectfully to feedback, and if necessary modify the vision. Communication is continual, and
not one-way.
n The single most complained-about aspect of change management is communication, and much
of that unhappiness is in response to change that is imposed through impersonal communication
channels, rather than developed collaboratively.
Communicating for commitment
Faced with a change, peoples commitment changes over time as their understanding and acceptance
develops. Communications have a key role in building commitment (or preventing it). The ultimate
stage is internalisation (acceptance of the change without conscious thinking) through involvement,
which does require substantial investment of managers time and effort.
Try the following ascending scale of communications to build commitment with key stakeholders:

7
6
Degree of support for change

5
4
3
2
1

Internalisation

Commitment

Acceptance

Engagement

Understanding

Awareness

Contact

Dear colleague
communications

Involvement in
visioning, setting
strategy

Private meetings
with resistors

Celebrating
success

Away days to
develop 12 month
plans

One-to-ones with
reports

Workshops on
specific issues

Training and
learning activities

Sponsor
walkabouts

Grassroots
meetings

Open door
sessions

Participation in
planning sessions

Focus groups

Team briefings

Focus groups and

demonstrations

Helpdesk

Open forums and

conferences

Cascades delivered
by managers

Road shows and

videos

Emails from
people

Newsletters

Intranet news,
displays, posters

Time
You may not have the resources or need to do all of these, but note that Dear colleague emails dont
get you anywhere near engagement with most people, and that true internalisation only comes with
involvement in the change process.

Change Management Toolkit

The Elevator Pitch

You and all members of your change team will need to be able to get across to stakeholders
the rationale and purpose of your change in a succinct, compelling way. Prepare a one-minute
elevator pitch that can express:
n Heres what our change initiative is about
n Its important to do because.
n Heres what success will look like, especially for you
n Heres what we need from you
n Heres what you can count on from me/us

Change Management Toolkit

The Plan
Key factors
n Forced, imposed or inflexible change plans are less likely to succeed
n Have clear ultimate goals, accountabilities and responsibility, but build in opportunities to review,
reflect and modify your aims and plans
Strategy
Change leaders are faced with a choice of approaches, often determined by the complexity and
scale of the change being proposed. These range from the directive (do as I say) to the emergent
(the destination is over there, lets work out the route as we go.) There is substantial evidence that
in most circumstances, emergent strategies are more successful long-term than any other. However,
people need certainty and goals, and organisations need to control costs and evaluate results, so it
is necessary to have a structure in which to manage a change initiative, most often as a project or
programme of projects.
There will always be a judgement to be made about appropriate timescales; seek to balance the need
for speed against the need to recruit and convince change agents and stakeholders, and to work with
them to plan and execute the change. Consider the risks and benefits of different approaches.
Having a clear vision of the desired end state is crucial to all change; be prepared to communicate
around this vision at all times, and to revisit, review and modify the overall goal of the change
process in the light of new information.
Plan
As a change leader, you are responsible for assembling the team that co-ordinates and drives the
change. A complex organisation-wide change involving many parts of the system might require
a number of projects drawn together as a programme. In this case it is likely to need specialist
expertise and extra resources (for example a professional project manager and a team seconded
from other duties). How can the necessary resources be pulled together? Consider the need for
back-filling when team members are removed from all or part of their regular job.
Establish key accountabilities and working arrangements according to the context. Some suggested
roles are:
1 Sponsor: Who is the most senior person or group responsible for approving actions and providing
support and resources.
2 Project manager: Who is responsible for checking progress and keeping an overview of resources
and activities?
3 Key user/stakeholder representative(s): Who is responsible for certifying that the changes have
been successful?
4 Communications lead: Who is responsible for ensuring that communications with all relevant
stakeholders are maintained, for example by organising focus groups and linking together the
various work groups within a project or programme.
5 Specialist(s): e.g. HR Manager: Responsible for advising on legal and other requirements created
by the change and that need to covered within the plan for the change. Ensures that these
requirements are met.

Change Management Toolkit

Managing the change project(s)

Key factors
n How are people feeling, and how will that affect progress?
n Break the change down into manageable, measurable stages, set up as properly planned and
managed projects where appropriate.
n Identify and celebrate successes, and successful individuals.
n Build in opportunities for feedback and revisit the plan frequently
n How are people feeling now?
Project management
There is a wealth of advice, techniques and training available for managing projects, however simple or
complex they are. Below we outline the essential characteristics of a project and a typical timeline for
setting up and managing projects. A more extensive set of guidelines and templates is provided in the
Project Management Guidelines.
Pay particular attention to clearly communicated timescales, clearly understood deliverables, and a
working process which regularly brings people together to review progress and make commitments for
the next stage.

Project team

Sponsors and stakeholders

Identify and engage
key stakeholders and
sponsors

Start here
Establish rationale:
Why is this project necessary?
What are its impacts and what will
be the benefit?

Establish stakeholder and sponsor

agreement/outline terms of reference

(Template 1)

initiation

definition

Define Terms of Reference (project brief)

WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?
Purpose
Background
Aims
Deliverables
Risks and legal requirements
Success criteria
Resources
Scope

plan
Do

NO:
but purpose
still valid

Is this the right

thing to do?

NO:
purpose no
longer valid

(Template 2)

Plan

Close

Check with stakeholders

Including:

YES

HOW ARE WE GOING TO DO IT?

Tasks
Progress monitoring
Communications

Manage, review, report, communicate

Still progressing?
Anything need to change?

Evaluate
What did we learn?

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How People Experience Change

Hopefully this wont be the first time in the process that you consider the people involved, and how
they are experiencing change. This section expands upon all the foregoing and sets out some of the
major human challenges facing change leaders.
Individuals have varying degrees of enthusiasm for change, and experience it in different ways and at
different rates. It is important to realise that:
1 Other peoples change journeys are not the same as yours.
2 Effective change leaders make time to understand and support others who are experiencing
change.
The Change Curve
Originally developed by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her work on the grieving process, and
much abused and misrepresented over the years, this curve has nevertheless proved valuable in
understanding and helping people who are experiencing change.

Integration
Denial
Morale/performance

Shock

Anger

Acceptance

Experiment
(with new way)
Depression

Time
As a leader of change, your role is to identify where people are on their journey through change, and
help them move on. Bear in mind that they will be at different stages from you, and from each other.
Even when a change has been planned, and the processes, systems and infrastructure have moved
into the new state, people need to make a transition to a new psychological orientation.
William Bridges identified three necessary stages of transition (below):
n Endings: saying goodbye and letting go of the old way.
n Exploration: the neutral zone of uncertainty, where people experiment with and find ways of
working in the new situation
n Moving forward (new beginnings): accepting the new ways and values and being comfortable with
those.
Bridges points out that people move through this transition at different rates, and in particular the more
senior the leader, the clearer the sight to the end purpose, the quicker a person is likely to make the
transition. Of course, people are all different and this doesnt always work!

Change Management Toolkit

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Level of management

The new beginning

The neutral zone

Ending, losing, letting go

Time
The Bridges model can be mapped onto the change curve to give leaders insights into how they can
most effectively engage and support people experiencing change and therefore making a transition:
Your
aims

Ending, losing,
letting go

Your
actions

Prepare people for

the reality of change

Minimise danger
of bad reactions,
resistance and fear

The neutral zone:

uncertainty, creativity

Communicate
often, applaud
the past but gain
closure, focus on
rationale for new
beginning, be
clear about what
is ending and
what is not

Change Management Toolkit

Watch and
listen: everyone
will be reacting
differently, provide
relevant support,
communicate
next steps

Start people on the

path to acceptance
and commitment to
the change

Encourage
commitment to
the new way

The new
beginning

Allow people to
test new ideas,
provide training
and facilitation to
develop new ways
of working, set
short-term goals,
allow others to take
responsibility and
be accountable

Celebrate
successes,
communicate
widely and
individually about
what has gone
well, how the new
world is working,
embed into
everyday work

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