Investigating realities

Disciplines > Change Management > Accepting the brief > Investigating realities

When you have listened to the presenting problem in the first meeting, and even if you are forced to accept the contract in this meeting, you will want to find out what is really happening and what the real causes of the situation are.

• Investigate stakeholders in change including their perceptions, their power and their likely response to any change.
• Understand resistance to change, its causes and likely outcomes.
• Diagnose the change, including looking at the past to show causes and trajectories of change and the present context to see the need for change.

The trick in all of this is to keep an open mind and keep structuring and organizing the information you acquire to build a coherent big picture of the change. Pinning things up on a big wall is a very useful practice, much like police do when investigating crimes.

Like with a crime, it is important to get a complete and truthful picture. When change runs into problems, it is often because of things that were missed or information was incorrect. It is better to find this up-front than when the smelly stuff hits the fan.

See also

Stakeholders in change, Diagnosing change, Resistance to change