Organizational Change Readiness Assessment System

Maintaining your company’s success in today’s business environment has become increasingly difficult. As a result, you – and your competitors – are changing more frequently that in the past. Successful transformations propel your organization forward. But even the most thought-through transition is prone to failure if your organization is not properly prepared for the change. Successful transformation requires a holistic approach in which an organization’s culture, systems and processes are realigned as necessary to support the implementation of the transformation and the organization’s ability to achieve and sustain the desired transformation objectives.

The risks of failure are costly: damaged employee morale, reduced productivity, unanticipated expanse, unhappy stakeholders; the list goes on.

How We Can Help

You want your transformation projects to be as successful as possible – delivering many long-lasting benefits. With our proprietary Organizational Change Readiness Assessment System TM (OCRAS) we can help to assess your organization’s current level of change readiness, and identify what needs to be done to maximize the success of what are often mission-critical transformations. Based on a multi-methods approach to data collection and analysis, OCRAS has two main components, which address both: the cultural change readiness; and the alignment of the organization’s “systemic change shaping levers”, the human resource management systems that interact with and reinforce corporate culture by promoting certain types of behaviours.

The cultural change readiness component consists of an organizational climate assessment survey and in-depth interviews with a diverse sample of organizational members and other stakeholders. This explores aspects of corporate culture and other people-related factors likely to promote or hinder successful transformation, such as leadership styles, employee morale and the perceived expectations of and risks relating to the proposed changes.

The systemic change shaping levers component involves a systematic review of the organizational structure and systems in order to provide understanding of the ways in which the performance management system, the compensation and rewards system, the leadership system and other “key change shaping levers” currently influence the attitudes and behaviours of organizational members, and any changes necessary to realign these with the proposed transformation.

After the assessment our transformation experts are able to come alongside you to help you place your organization in a state for optimal transformation.

Key Considerations

Questions to Ask

  • Have we considered organizational change readiness in relation to the seven key “change shaping levers” including the leadership system, the compensation and rewards system, the approach to performance management, and the communications system and tools?
  • What is the level of depth we consider in assessing our organizational change readiness?
  • Do our transformation initiatives have a good track-record of success? Are the transformations generally sustainable or do our results diminish over time?

Thoughts to Consider

  • The human, cultural and stakeholder-related factors are the ones that often represent major barriers to transformation, including: understanding and awareness, leadership styles, communication, commitment, etc.
  • When evaluating an organization’s change readiness, one should incorporate a review of its corporate culture and its systems and processes, since these all influence the ways in which organizational stakeholders respond to and engage with the transformation process
  • It is important to explore aspects of corporate culture and readiness from both an “individual” and “systemic” perspective, and identify other people-related factors likely to promote or hinder successful transformation

It is important for any organization considering a major transformation to carry out an assessment of the overall state of change readiness. The benefits of doing so include:

  • An understanding of your organization’s change readiness, including: levels of stress and anxiety, interests and perspectives, future expectations, and commitment
  • An understanding of leadership and communication styles most likely to generate a successful outcome
  • Identification of possible risks that your organization may be facing in the way of successful transformation
  • An understanding of what key “change shaping levers” have to be focused on for optimal results
  • The establishment of a standardised process including advanced reports and support to help address concerns in a clear and effective manner
  • Higher transformation success rates

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