Can Your Team Handle the Change?

The Change Readiness Assessment

The next step in managing change is to assess how ready your team or organization is able to deal with the changes you are proposing. Don’t skip this step. Many change efforts fail not because they were not good projects or even critical to business sustainability but simply because the culture was not ready for the change. Subsequently, the tools available to manage change were not used and the culture became overwhelmed.

It is a simple yet crucial process. Just score the following questions using a 1-5 linear scale

1= Strongly Disagree 2= Disagree 3 =Neutral 4=Agree 5= Strongly Agree

1	Our culture enables large scale change to occur smoothly
2	There are enough resources (people and funding) available to manage this change
3	Team members are well equipped to manage this change
4	Everything for our stakeholders is changing or likely to be impacted
5	All roles across the organization will be impacted
6	We have clear communication channels to utilize
7	We have a successful track record of managing change
8	Our strategy is clear and widely shared across the organization
9	Our leaders are competent at driving change and inspiring action
10	Our managers are competent at managing and reinforcing change
11	We have clear incentive or recognition mechanisms in place to reward the right behaviors

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The total score at the bottom of the assessment is the “readiness” or your team to embrace the changes you are proposing.

Scores 35 and above

A score of 35 and above indicates there is good readiness and understanding of change. Your change toolkit will require fewer inputs to manage the initiative. Look back at successful implementations and the lessons learned to increase the adoption rate of the change.

Scores 20-35

A score of 20-35 indicates some effort will be required to introduce and manage the change. There are risks that need to be addressed and mitigated to make the implementation successful.

Scores 20 and below

A score of 20 and below indicates significant effort will be required to introduce and manage the change. A large focus on the change management implementation plan will be around risk and risk management.

Summary

Are you planning to kick off a change proposal to your leadership team? Or are you in the planning phase of a significant implementation? Take a moment and run through this readiness assessment with your charter team and get a good view of the work necessary to manage the change based on your team’s ability to assimilate the changes.

As always, I’d love to hear back about your experience with both challenging and successful change initiatives. Feel free to drop me an email or comment below.