The Importance of Change Management in Driving Green Initiatives

The Importance of Change Management in Driving Green Initiatives

According to a November 2006 Agility and Resilience Survey commissioned by the American Management Association and the Human Resource Institute, 7 out of 10 executives indicated they had experienced disruptive change in the past year.  Additionally, when asked how resilient their organizations were to change:

• 6% of respondents said “completely”
• 37% of respondents said “very much”
• 42% of respondents said “somewhat.”

Accepting and adopting a new change isn’t easy for many of us, professionally or personally.  On our show dedicated to Going Green: Coaching for Social Responsibility, it was no surprise to hear that getting an organization to drive and adopt change related to going green and other initiatives is no different. 

Being a change management consultant myself, I loved hearing our guests discuss the importance of:

• Facilitating conversations with senior leaders about environmental efforts.
• Creating and driving an overall impulse to change throughout the organization.
• Developing powerful stories about the company’s green initiatives.
• Supporting middle management in implementing initiatives and driving communications to their teams.
• Working with employees to understand the impact of change on their day-to-day jobs.

When talking about change management, a common question that consistently comes up is – where do I start?

The answer?  With your stakeholders. 

The overall goal of any change management effort is to increase awareness, understanding, and adoption of a new initiative, program, or other type of change.  But what often gets in the way is resistance.

In my company, Insight Educational Consulting, we recommend our clients start with a stakeholder analysis, a service focused on identifying resistance across multiple groups within your organization and developing strategies (by audience) to overcome it. 

Who are stakeholders?  They are the people impacted by the change you’re trying to drive.  Not just executives, stakeholders include directors, managers, and individual employees within various groups, as well as partners, vendors, and customers.

When trying to assess your company’s willingness to go green, first identify the stakeholders who can help you drive the change within all levels of the organization.  Regardless of whether it’s energy conservation, recycling, or reducing waste, sit down and talk with a representative sampling of those groups and individuals who will be impacted by the overall green initiative. 

Once you’ve discussed their concerns and listened to their feedback, you’ll have the information you need to develop an overall change management strategy that will help get you “greener” from there.

Tom Floyd
CEO
IEC: Insight Educational Consulting
Specializing in Change Management, Workforce Performance, and Employee Development

Going Green: Coaching for Social Responsibility

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