Chapter Eleven: Evaluating and Sustaining Change Stage

Contents

11.1 Purpose of Evaluating and Sustaining Change Stage
11.2 Evaluating Change
11.3 Sustaining Change
11.4 Ethical Concerns with Evaluating and Sustaining Change
11.5 Tips for Developing OD Skills: Planning and Process Management
Reflection & Summary

11.1 Purpose of Evaluating and Sustaining Change Stage

Although there is no clear consensus on this, many business leaders and change facilitators believe that organizational change efforts often fail to achieve their initial goals. As we learned in the previous chapter, change is a process that requires intentional and planned effort to be accomplished. We also learned that organizations are complex systems operating in a dynamic, changing environment. Therefore, a change effort that started with one goal, oftentimes needs to be adjusted and redirected to support the business to adapt to the new conditions of the places they operate. Many expert change facilitators who use an OD approach believe that, as important as achieving an ideal desired outcome is, it is also important to learn the change process and develop the necessary skills to become a learning organization and a change-capable organization. In a way, a successful change is not to achieve all the goals planned one year ago; many of them might need to be actually adjusted, but it is to learn how to be ready to adapt and adapt again.

The evaluating and sustaining change stage is a vital part of the OD process and is critical to guaranteeing the success and sustainability of the change process. This stage aims to help the organization assess the effectiveness of the change process and its outcomes, design and implement strategies to consolidate the new ways of doing things, and identify necessary adjustments and additional opportunities for improvement. Moreover, the evaluation process helps to build intellectual capital within the organization by keeping track of progress and mapping the learnings that result from the OD process. Furthermore, this closing stage of the OD process can be essential to acknowledge the efforts of organizational members who engaged in the process and boost organizational morale by celebrating the accomplishments and keeping energy for the next necessary adaptive move.

Although it is the last stage of the OD process, conversations about how to evaluate the process and its outcomes should take place at the beginning of the OD engagement and be revisited throughout the process. In the initial conversation about organizational change, the change facilitator should inquire about what would be a successful change process and what the desired outcomes are, exploring some possibilities to measure these two aspects over time. Likewise, and in particular during the OD intervention stage, it is important to discuss strategies to sustain the change movement in a positive direction, while being able to map new needs for change.

11.2 Evaluating Change

The evaluation stage should start at the very beginning of the OD process, with the change facilitator defining initial goals for the project and mapping potential indicators to measure the success of the change process. In general, after the diagnosis stage, when the change facilitator and organization are discussing the findings and refining the change goals, they should also agree on how and at what moments they will evaluate progress and outcomes. In many cases, although the change facilitator supports the organization in establishing an evaluation strategy, someone within the organization often assumes the responsibility to execute the assessments and report results.

As the OD process is a developmental process, it is essential to measure both the results of the implemented changes and the effectiveness of the process itself. Evaluating the OD process helps the change facilitator and the organization learn from it and adjust their approach when change is needed again in the future. For example, besides defining key indicators to assess the outcomes of the change (e.g., team performance, productivity, retention, climate, job satisfaction), the organization may measure the satisfaction of key stakeholders or organizational members broadly with the OD process and specific OD interventions, and assess their learnings and confidence in theis anility to undergo future change processes. As changes in complex systems can take time to show results, the evaluation must be conducted at different points in time to develop a better understanding of the change outcomes and identify necessary adjustments and areas for improvement.

Once defined what to measure and when to measure, it is important to plan how data will be collected, analyzed, and reported. Many of the data-gathering methods discussed in Chapter 5 can be used in the evaluation strategy, including surveys, interviews, and focus groups. Collected data is then analyzed and compared with the criteria defined for a successful change process. The results of this analysis should determine adjustments to the OD process and identify demand for additional changes. Reporting the outcomes to the key stakeholders involved in the OD process is crucial, as it maintains accountability and energy to support the change in the long term.

Unfortunately, many organizations overlook the evaluation stage, missing the opportunity to learn from the process and putting the sustainability of the change at risk. Common factors that prevent organizations from executing the evaluation stage include finding it difficult to measure progress and outcomes, preferring to prioritize other efforts as they consider it a time-consuming and costly process, and wanting to avoid facing potentially frustrating outcomes from the process.

11.3 Sustaining Change

Accomplishing change can be a challenging process. Maintaining it and making it stick is also hard and requires intentional effort and a set of planned activities to support this process. Multiple factors contribute to making this process of sustaining change a difficult one. Oftentimes, so much energy and resources are invested in the change process itself that organizational members give less attention to maintaining the positive change when the OD process is completed. Additionally, as change takes time to consolidate, individuals’ natural resistance to change, organizational culture, and comfort with the old ways of doing things will keep posing obstacles to the change’s sustainability.

Therefore, the change facilitator must help the organization design a set of initiatives to support the sustainability of the implemented changes. The goal of these initiatives or sustaining strategies is to institutionalize change and map and remove existing barriers to consolidating the changes the organization aims to achieve. Like the evaluation process, strategies to institutionalize the changes and reduce barriers to them should be discussed at the beginning of the OD engagement and carried out throughout the change process.

The evaluation process described before is an important mechanism to sustain change, as it helps the organization identify areas that require attention and plan necessary actions. Evaluation also helps organizations to acknowledge when new changes are necessary to adapt to the current scenarios. Some strategies that can help organizations to keep an intentional effort to evaluate and sustain the change are exemplified in this video:

Other strategies to make a change process sustainable involve designing and implementing supporting and reinforcing mechanisms. Supporting mechanisms aim to ensure buy-in and reduce resistance to change. They include intentional efforts to engage key stakeholders in the change process and an adequate communication plan to keep organizational members informed. It is critical that organizational members have a clear understanding of the reasons for the change, the end goals, and the process that is being deployed to accomplish these goals.

Reinforcing mechanisms to sustain change include a set of actions that incentivize new behaviors, acknowledge effort put into maintaining new processes, and celebrate accomplishments. This might involve redesigning the human resources process, including training and performance evaluations, to support the development of new behaviors and reward those employees who embrace change. As these change processes often involve adjustments in the organization’s values and culture, symbolic reinforcement is also a powerful mechanism to consolidate change. Rites and language reinforcing the new values and desired behaviors, and ceremonies to reflect on the change process and celebrate achievements are valuable strategies to sustain change.

The Influence Model is a framework developed by McKinsey Company that emphasizes four critical components to help individuals reframe their mindsets that support the desired change. The first is to have a compelling reason to change that is clearly understood by employees of the organization. The second is having leaders who champion the specific change at hand and act as role models. The third is to provide training and other learning opportunities to help employees develop the necessary skills to be successful as they adapt to the change, and lastly, to have reinforcing systems in place supporting advancement in the desired direction.

11.4 Ethical Concerns with Evaluating and Sustaining Change

In the evaluation stage of the OD process, change facilitators must be mindful of similar ethical issues that may arise in the data gathering and feedback stage. Ensure that data collected is appropriately used and preserve the anonymity and well-being of the participants in the process. Moreover, it is essential to minimize bias in the analysis towards positive outcomes, overlooking negative results of the change process. Further, in feedback conversations about the results, the change facilitator and organizational members conducting the evaluation process should be careful not to soften the message while treating all with respect and maintaining a future-oriented and action-oriented approach.

11.5 Tips for Developing OD Skills: Planning and Process Management

One of the primary responsibilities of a change facilitator is to plan and manage the OD process. This requires a set of abilities, including establishing goals and milestones, defining the necessary tasks to achieve these goals, considering potential problems that may arise along the way, identifying the resources required to put the plan into practice, and implementing and monitoring the process. These abilities can be developed over time as individuals become involved in facilitating change, but they require significant effort and consistent practice. Facilitating changes at the organizational level demands strong planning and management skills.

As a student, you can practice these skills in your daily routine. For example, at the beginning of the semester, you can choose a course to practice these skills:

1. Understand the goals of the course and map the main assignments and deadlines.
2. For larger assignments, break them down into smaller tasks and create a list of resources needed to complete them.
3. Distribute these small tasks in time, make an estimate of how much time you will need to complete each task, and when you will get them done.
4. Define a tool to help you manage your tasks. It can be a planner, a visual timeline, a spreadsheet, or other tools like (list some).
5. Constantly reflect on how your plan is going and make adjustments.
6. When the course is over, reflect back and map the things that worked well and what you can do to improve your planning and management next time.

Summary

The Evaluating and Sustaining Change stage is the final but crucial part of the OD process. In this stage, the change facilitator and organizational members focus on assessing the effectiveness of implemented changes and ensuring their sustainability. Although this stage is the last step of the OD process, conversations about how to evaluate the success of the change and how to ensure that new ways of operating will stick should happen at the beginning of the process. Defining evaluation criteria and designing a strategy to sustain the change allow the organization to map resistances, make the necessary adjustments, and institutionalize new ways of operating. Sustaining change requires intentional strategies to foster the engagement of key stakeholders and minimize barriers to change. Celebrating achievements and acknowledging the efforts of organizational members supporting the change are also powerful mechanisms to consolidate change. Importantly, as the business environment is constantly changing, a good balance between sustaining change and recognizing new needs to adapt is vital. That is what makes the OD approach valuable, as its purpose is not only to support organizational change but also to instill the capabilities to constantly learn and adapt to new scenarios.