10 Things I like About Change Management | Horizontal Change ...

I keep getting asked, usually after explaining some difficulty around change, why I like this career.

Here are ten reasons in no particular order:

1. People.

   Change needs people. Change needs people?s talent and expertise. To change requires the effort of both individuals and individuals coming together. People can stick together like glue for some things. People can repel each other and good ideas to about the same degree. It is challenging and fascinating to try to figure people out and find that stickiness.

2. Business.

   Change for business can take on many flavors- M & A, technology adoption, organizational redesign, cultural tweaking, new leadership, structural redo?s and more. Business is influenced by so many things both internal and external. Anticipating them and ?managing them? is 50% of the change equation. This flavorful combination, tasted over a career, keeps me coming back for more.

3. Potential.

   There is so much more possibility in organizations on both the people and the business side. One engagement is often the chance to reveal potential for the next. Change practitioners get to assess the past, enjoy the process of the present and plan for the future.

4. The Journey.

   Admittedly the journey is often the most difficult part of change. Difficulty equals challenge. This is a challenging career.

5. Beginnings.

   This is number one, really. Beginnings have so much possibility. Change should be all about possibility.

6. Simple Tasks.

   Sometimes organizational change is so big, broad and all encompassing that the simple tasks on the way to the end state become the most enjoyable part of the role of a change practitioner.

7. Learning.

   Seems to happen every day of a change engagement. It might be the real learning of figuring out a technology in order to better guide leadership to end state descriptions. Other days it is the learning the comes with watching and guiding individuals and the group to new skill and profit.

8. Time.

   Different practitioners are drawn to change management for different reasons. Some want a better connection to people (there are a lot of former engineers- previously immersed in the role of an individual contributor- now practicing CM). Some like to organize and attempt to control things (and possibly people), those practitioners do well in the middle of the organization on projects doing Tactical Change. For me it is a fascination with time. Changes tweak time for organizations. As an external I get to see and address time.

9. Celebration.

   This part gets skipped a lot in the turmoil of change. When the end state is reached that is an obvious time for celebration. Along the way for important milestones too. Little celebrations are typically forgotten- bring in a change practitioner to make sure celebration is not missed (and happens more than once).

10. End States.

    If you get there, and, of course, you never really do. The closer you get though, the better our previous 9 become (the next time around!).

Ten things I like about this career, to answer those who keep asking: people, business, potential, the journey, beginnings, simple tasks, learning, time celebration and getting to end states.

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Source: http://horizontalchange.com/2012/08/10-things-i-like-about-change-management/

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