Organizational change can be difficult, even with proper understanding of your organization's culture and how people will react to it. By working to turn your organization into one that changes easily--but still is able to remain calm and not overreact when it shouldn't--you can save time, money and jobs.

Maintaining Organizational Change

If you have just implemented a change, small or large, use that momentum to keep going. Retain those aspects of the change that you know you will want to keep, and continue to change other things. Start a philosophy of continuous improvement and don't allow employees to get complacent. Involve them, and let them suggest change as well.

Make sure everyone within the organization knows about the successes of previous change, which will make change popular and keep it in place within the organization. It will also ensure that some of the success is attributed to the fact that change happened at all. If you do this successfully, and make clear how the change benefited the lives of the employees instead of just the organization as an entity, they will be more enthusiastic about any future change the organization may undergo.

Reward employees for enthusiastically adopting change. Behavior that encourages change should be rewarded with bonuses, or even just more personal support. By making this reward or bonus structure permanent, you can help increase the chances that change will become part of the organizational culture instead of just a set of rules.

Finally, make change part of your organizational structure. If you have managed to change the minds of your managers and employees, your change has been successful and they are likely more conducive to change. Don't make major changes too often, and make sure that the ones you do make are good for the company as a whole. Publicize your efforts and reward your employees, and your organization is well on its way to being change-positive.