If you are thinking of choosing the right change management consultants, there are many things you may need to look out for when making this very important decision. Choosing the right consultancy can make a difference to the change initiative in a big way. Having the right expertise will help you to achieve all that is positive for the transition, leading to greater positives longer term for your organisation. There are many things within change management that contribute to success, including: improving ROI, retaining top performers, speed of change, and prevention of misdirection of the project. Many change management initiatives have the potential to fail – and research shows over two thirds statistically come into that bracket – so it is really important you look for the right change management consultant.
So what do you need to look out for when hiring the best consultancy for transformation change management onboard?
Experience
What has the consultancy done prior with other organisations? If you can, speak to someone who has used the consultancy before. What changes have they experienced as a leader, manager or employee? You will be looking for a consultancy who has experienced success with a variety of change initiatives. This will in turn bring more understanding to the initiative your organisation wants to implement. They will have worked in or with large organisations, and performed significant restructure and wider staff training responsibilities.
Role Taken
As an organisation, you will need to be transparent with what you aim to achieve from hiring the change consultant. Will the consultant be required to put together the structure essential to meeting the end goal? Will the management of the people involved in or with the organisation for change be necessary? The organisation needs to be aware of the areas that need action – does your organisation need help identifying these? Change consultants have many expertise and different levels of experience, therefore it is important to know what you need and hire the best transitional change management consultancy. You may start by having a top down or bottom up interview sample of people who can express the strategic, operational and cultural position of your company, and that way the person can formulate a position to work from.
Approach
For change management to be a success, consultants need to offer a clever approach. This can come by asking effective business questions and working to make the pieces of the puzzle fit, before devising a plan of action. If the consultant doesn’t ask these questions and start making decisions that can give great results this can be a worry, and this could be considered running before walking. When the consultant seeks to spend time observing within departments from a very informal and supportive perspective, then you know that strategic, operational and cultural scoping is being carried out.
How many for the job
Even with a great transitional change management consultancy, transparency and team compliance are very important. Having employees and people with the organisational interest fully engaged in the change processes offers a greater chance of success. For the change management consultancy to be solely working on the change initiative often means the change goes away when the consultants do. You need to hire someone with proven success and expertise in building and working internally with employees of an organisation. To achieve a successful change in the long run, everyone has to be onboard with what is happening, and work together to reach the end goal. If your consultant is overbearing, conceited or officious, you lose the very opportunity you are wishing to take. The personality of the person really does matter, and it may be that they present in front of a cross section of your company community, in order for them to give a barometer opinion before you make your final decision.
Success rate percentage
Do your research. You should not hesitate to ask the consultancy about their success rate. In fact it is highly recommended you do so. Research suggests that if their rate is really high it might be too good to be true, so be cautious about believing everything you hear, but ask about recent, genuine case studies and how change management was implemented.
Corrections
It’s also a good idea to ask about the consultancy’s past failures. By asking about their largest failures, you will be able to follow up with how they corrected issues (if they don’t already do so themselves). If there are any signs of inability to respond to frank questioning about things that went wrong, these are not consultants for you.
Pragmatism
With a good change initiative, making smart business decisions is crucial to the outcome. The right consultant for the job needs to be able to demonstrate they understand your organisation, the people involved, and their roles, in order to make the transition a success. With focus solely on the people side of things – and therefore showing no understanding of the organisation itself – things will slip, and this is not a good sign. To be fully engaged in all aspects of your business is very important. Being able to personalise this relationship (rather than sticking to standardised procedures) makes for better outcomes. We need to be aware that the staff at the consultancy you are wanting to hire are human, not robots. This in turn allows business owners to form cultural norms that will lead to great ROI. Make sure you are hiring a ‘people person’, who will integrate fully into your business and get on well with your staff. This can make all the difference.