Frank: First of all: In change management, you have to distinguish between the classic type and the one in IT. In the case of change in the sense of IT change, it is about technical changes in the system due to further development of systems and functional changes, i.e., about a process that results in changes to infrastructure and software. Then it is about questions such as who is responsible, how and by whom tests are carried out, how commissioning works, etc. Just for the sake of proper order.

But your question is aimed at classic change management, and here is my definition: Fundamentally, change management is the idea of making an upcoming change understandable and manageable for employees or customers or stakeholders or however those affected or involved in a company are referred to. That sounds a bit vague at first, so let me make it clearer: The background is that people generally do not like change. Because change always has something threatening about it; you know your way around in your familiar environment and would prefer to leave everything as it has always been, because you know it and it is familiar to you. That applies to every one of us. The electricity bill always looked like this — why should it suddenly look different? The newspaper always had a certain layout — why should that be different now, and so on. People do not like dealing with change, because they fear that changes may not lead to something better. Change management is an approach to taking away these fears, keeping concerns small, and making the transition from initial situation A to a new, hopefully better situation B as easy and as fast as possible.

But that probably does not happen overnight?

Frank: No, it is a process, and one that is also divided into different phases for those affected — the target group that has to support the change so that it succeeds. At the beginning there is often shock or euphoria — people are horrified or happy about the change. Then come rejection and resistance, along the lines of: “They can’t be serious, I’m simply not doing this!” The mood curve then drops all the way down because people do not know how to deal with the new situation. At the same time, work performance declines because people no longer feel like working. When the first measures kick in and people have rationally understood that there is definitely no going back, they try out the new thing — and in the best case discover that it is better than the old one — and that they can actually cope quite well with the new situation. So the mood curve rises again — and with it productivity. In the best case, meaning if the measure made sense, you reach a higher level after the change process.

Where does change management come in during this process?

Frank: Ideally as early as the requirements analysis, in order to establish the appropriate mechanisms that support the project communicatively, make its goals transparent, and encourage participation — thus bringing employees along from the very beginning. Because change management tries to limit this mood curve so that there are no major downward spikes at all. The aim is to prevent affected people from slipping into this “I’m unhappy and I’ll withdraw for now” state in the first place, and instead help them adapt to the new situation as quickly as possible.

Okay, understood. But it is still a bit theoretical. Do you have a practical example?

Frank: I once had a project that was about introducing a new procurement system. At that time, the company’s entire procurement depended on a single team, or rather its manager, who did her job using an index card system. Don’t get me wrong: It worked excellently for her — but it was absolutely no longer up to date. Apart from that, warehousing also had to be reconceptualized as part of the process — and there, too, an index card system would have been more of a hindrance than a help. In any case: The employee was really desperate and practically obstructed the change process. Nobody was allowed near this card file, to put it a bit dramatically. It took a great deal of sensitivity and interaction to explain to her exactly what the goal of the change was and why everyone would benefit in the end — including her. That is one of the key aspects of change management anyway: Employees or affected people must understand that the change will work in their favor.

Meaning: communication is the be-all and end-all?

Frank: Indeed, it is crucial that you reach employees, or affected and involved people. For a change manager, it is therefore essential to understand how communication works in the respective company. It is not about using channels that are obvious only at first glance, such as the intranet; instead, you have to look very closely at how information reaches the target group. For example, we once had a project at a publishing house. In fact, the central hub of communication there was the good old “bulletin board” next to the elevators, where new notices were posted daily on every floor. Everyone passed by several times a day — and was informed. You have to take something like that into account in your communication strategy. If you choose the wrong channel, the information ends up in limbo — and not where it needs to go.

Why not simply send all employees an email? That is significantly less effort — and reaches everyone.

Frank: You might think so, but depending on what kind of employees you are dealing with, it is not only about classic office infrastructure — and then an email simply does not arrive. We always assume that change only affects so-called knowledge workers in offices, but there are plenty of employees who actually have no system access, and you would be surprised how often that is the case. For them, there have to be other solutions to reach them. Of course, you can then use employee assemblies, today often called town hall meetings, but those are very time-consuming — and whether the effort ultimately justifies the benefit is, in my view, at least questionable.

And how do you reach such employees if it is not via email or information events — not every company has a “bulletin board,” right?

Frank: Often it is very simple things — but they attract attention. I’ll give you an example: In an ongoing project, we initiated a poster campaign. The commissioning corporation already had models for this, and we adopted and developed that further. To give you an idea: We are talking about a necessary reach of 25,000 to 30,000 employees — and traditional communication systems quickly hit their limits there. We created short texts with catchy illustrations for funny, sometimes provocative, in any case memorable posters, and used them to trigger the necessary information process. Because employees already knew such poster campaigns, as I said, they were reached perfectly this way. It was enormously successful. We started with 200 posters — and are now at a print run of 3,000.

Reading is good, doing it yourself would be even better for understanding. You know the Confucius quote: “Tell me, and I forget. Show me, and I remember. Let me do it, and I keep it.” How do you ensure that the target group also practices the innovation themselves?

Frank: As I said, you have to convince people that the innovation supports them and makes their lives easier, thus providing them with a personal benefit. And testing things out is, of course, an important factor. I once had a project that involved consolidating the printer infrastructure at a well-known insurance company. We then placed some of the new devices in the cafeteria and offered employees the chance to bring their latest vacation photos and print them on the new machine. That gave everyone easy access — and they were not afraid to test the thing out. This playful approach, which takes away fear of the new, is a key point in change management. But again: It is never a single measure that works; it is the mix that matters — and digital naturally plays a significant role in that. It is no coincidence that we emphasize on our homepage that we are the implementation strategists for the digital world. Digital measures expand our toolbox. If you like, we do not just have a hammer and saw, but also a drill, an angle grinder, and even a CNC milling machine at hand.

Let’s come back to the employee with the index card system. How did you manage to convince her that a new system would also be personally beneficial for her?

Frank: I talked to her a lot, demonstrated a lot to her, addressed all of her concerns — and at some point she realized that numerous issues that personally cost her a lot of work and effort — and also slowed down projects — were much more manageable and solvable through modern methods. This company was dealing with the logistics of fiber-optic cabling. Its assembly is complex and difficult, because each cable and each connection route has to be produced to fit the respective construction project precisely. And before the change, it worked like this: they checked exactly what was needed, that was manufactured, delivered, stored, and dispatched. What this transition was meant to make possible — and ultimately did — was that instead of offering only individual configurations, they had a range of cable materials that was always in stock. And that significantly accelerated processing time. This, in turn, was of great importance for the company’s customers, because an order was then launched within a week instead of taking months as before. I won’t even start on the competitive advantage that came with it over the competition. In any case: When the employee who had initially resisted so strongly the banishment of her index cards saw all this — and the first thank-you letters from customers landed on her desk — she relented.

What is the biggest obstacle in change management?

Frank: In fact, that as a rule it is brought into the project far too late. The project has started, is already in implementation — and the effects on employees are also known, because that was already analyzed during requirements gathering. But somehow nobody took care of the fact that resistance would come from the workforce. And then you realize that the forecast results of what you implemented do not take hold or materialize at all, because employees do not implement it, because they consider the new processes unnecessary or simply continue as before. And then everything you have done so far in the project is money burned.

And what is the key success factor?

Frank: Personal access to the people affected. You really have to put yourself in their shoes, understand their language and communication channels, their challenges. You have to understand how communication works in the respective company. And there is no standard toolkit for that, only individual solutions for each customer on how to reach the workforce and how to explain that the change is necessary and beneficial for everyone. At some point it always works. It is only a question of how much time and grief you impose on employees.