Frederick Reynecke
IOCMI
The Director
CM vs. OCM
CM vs. OCM – What a difference the ‘O’ makes.
Change Management has been able to attract the attention of the Cognitive Theorists, Psychologists etc, whilst Management Practitioners have let them get on with the ‘soft’ stuff – perhaps it’s a symptom of the ever existent male chauvinism so common in management hierarchies. Effectively, the world now thinks of Change Management as a process for managing resistance, which is why you always see the inverted bell-curve indicating the theoretical behavioural buy-in process, as the symbol for Change Management groups. A clear indication of functional specialist thinking.
It’s not ‘mucho’ to figure out the details of how people may feel about impacts of change. Prudent analysis of change details, is also considered to be an analysts job – why should Management get involved in that? Another mis-conception that sorely needs to go.
OCM is more about the ‘strategy map’ – identifying organizational changes required in order to manage the negative and positive risks of an organization’s strategy, and then managing the change to deliver the game-plan, or change vision.
This is why the IOCMI has developed a set of simple OCM standards, which if followed will enhance the outcome of Strategic Initiatives and thus improve the organization’s strategic performance.
Which begs the question, shouldn’t accountability for OCM lie squarely at the Risk Committee? Perhaps it should, but until now, there has not been an OCM Controls Catalogue for auditing OCM. After all, you can’t audit where there are no controls. Another situation the IOCMI has set straight. Now, there is no excuse for the Risk Committee OR Auditors to NOT audit the OCM investments in an organization, which by the way are substantial, with most of them failing. Which the begs the last question…where is OCM in all the wonderful codes of good governance? The IOCMI is addressing this too. Shareholders have a right to know that their investments are being managed properly when it comes to Organizational Change. In many respects, OCM practitioners are actually asset managers, ensuring that the people, process and technology investments are made with a clear intention to transcend existing operating state and transition with minimum risk and maximum benefit.
So what do you do? Do you manage resistance or manage strategic change? It’s CM or OCM respectively.
For sure, CM has a role in OCM, but if OCM is done properly, there should be no need for CM.
