Restructuring? Ensure success!
The challenge of documenting change is that, if you are engaged with the process, it is hard to get an objective perspective until after the event.
To experience meaningful change involves being present to the nuances and sometimes responding in ways that are not anticipated. Moving through the process requires agility and flexibility. Organisations that require leaders of change to account for the detail in strict formats throughout, are at risk of preventing the intended outcome. There is a stage during the change where it will not look like it is supposed to, and providing this is still within the forward momentum (and aligned with the bigger picture) it is essential to run with it.
Change usually has a time where we (the organisation and/or individual) must take a leap of faith through the unknown, pushing forward to invisible outcomes in the hope that the original intention can come into being. Traditionally, this is where many managers lose faith and either implement a new model of change or insist on detailed justification to deal with the uncertainty.
This is understandable, but none-the-less self-sabotaging. Never-ending formal Change Management processes that increase when the going gets tough and the outcomes seem in doubt, are a symptom of the trigger-happy theorist.
In practice riding the unknown takes courage. Planning and theory only works to a certain point - the point at which the inevitable unplanned occurrence occurs! This is when innovation, creativity and genuine, meaningful change can evolve. Gut instinct and non-linear thinking will lead the way. Insisting that the emerging creation conforms to previous patterns or formats, is like trying to get the genie back in the box.
Sooner or later, the uncertainty ends and the New reveals itself in a recognisable form. Now key players can sigh with relief, pat each other on the back, laugh at the way they got through the chaos and then - finally - sit down and document the process. It will have a visible pattern, key turning points that can be put into graphics, pie-charts or tables and a result that can be measured and documented.
At last it looks ordered and logical - creating the illusion that the next change process will be equally simple!