"The rate of change in the business world is not going to slow down anytime soon. If anything, competition will probably speed up over the next few decades. Enterprises everywhere will be presented with hazards and wonderful opportunities, driven by the globalization of the economy along with related technological and social trends."(John Kotter, Harvard Business School Press)
The business case for being able to respond to and make complex changes in our corporate environment is clear. We have to learn to do it well or we might as well decide not to compete at all. In fact, estimates show only about 20% of all organizational change initiatives are successful, no matter what they are, because too often companies are not aware of or do not continue to move through the entire change process.
There is a wide body of knowledge regarding change management and so we know that complex change in an organization is really the alignment of thousands of choices which guide the company to reach desired changes. We also know all changes require the organization to move through a series of phases in a predictable order. First, identify changes that will result in significant improvement for the organization, create a vision and plan of activities people can easily understand, build support and motivation for the change, achieve smaller changes so the larger change can be completed and so new future changes will be easier to achieve, and finally, put systems, structures, and processes in place so the change in question has a lasting positive impact on the organization. The change process becomes even more complex because people and organizations can move on from one phase of change to another before work in the earlier phase is complete.
Waterville Consulting Group assists leaders and change agents to simplify and manage the complicated alignment necessary for changes to be successful; alignment of the organization's goals and action plans, alignment of the change plan, and alignment of the future direction of the company. By providing organizations with guidance for developing effective change management strategies and plans, Waterville Consulting helps leaders move their organizations through these predictable change phases as rapidly and smoothly as possible so they can get back to the important work of winning in the marketplace.