Failure or success? Change management importance

With a rapid increase in the service offerings, the broadcast industry has been continuously transforming for a while now. Big or small, broadcasters are adapting and ensuring quick delivery of the new products as competitive differentiation, adapting to agile, DevOps, and moving away from black boxes to the software.

Failure or success of this massive transformation lies in successful change. But what is the secret to successful change?

The effect of the change may produce many factors and phases that will help or hinder the progress. You need to expect and prepare yourself for each stage and try to minimize a downward curve of performance.

Here are some key lessons I’ve picked up while implementing various projects and programs.

Be the early bird

Involve everybody in the change process as early as possible. You need to reach out to people ahead of time, involve them in brainstorming sessions about the proposed change and collectively shape the road map and the future.

You need champions

It’s vital to have champions on all levels who understand why and how the change is occurring.

They need to feel empowered and be a crucial part of the change. These champions will be your right hand, supporting you prior to the launch.

Embrace disagreement

Embrace and be excited about disagreement. People who disagree with you will bring energy to the table. By genuinely listening to people who disagree with you and by considering their point of view, you will increase the opportunity for them to get on board with the change and help you spot the holes in your thinking.

Become a change storyteller

To keep people committed, they need to know what’s happening. Make it safe to ask questions and share feedback. Anyone involved needs to be able to help create and tell the story. Don’t make the mistake of assuming updates only need to come from the management level. Stories told by end users can do wonders for the organization.

Small wins, big motivation

The power of progress is essential. Small wins you make along the way will result in more work motivation for all those involved in the change. You will need to know when to leverage progress to boost motivation, but when you do, you need to advertise it on all levels.

Implementing change, be ready for change

You have defined your process, the tools are ready, as well as all your templates with which you will track progress. It’s entirely possible that you missed something in the planning or you realize in the middle of change implementation that the process is too complicated and hard to implement.

Adjusting the change control process is common, especially in complex implementations, and you need to adapt quickly.

Implementing technology creates opportunities to do things differently, better and faster than others, which is what makes it so exciting but also so difficult. Always remind your team that change will be constant and the culture of flexibility and a willingness to embrace change is critical to future success.