It is a given that at the onset of every change, organisational leaders will define clear business objectives and new capabilities that the change will bring. It is an area that takes all the focus, often causing leaders to overlook the significant value of taking full advantage of the change journey itself.
In its 2025 report, Gartner highlights that 74 % of HR leaders feel that their organisation’s leaders are lacking change management competences.
Yet, at a time where the business world is experiencing tremendous change, so many organisations lack the foresight to see and use the opportunity to build a change framework that will allow them to succeed repeatedly.
The change process, offers the unique opportunity to build change competences, that can be utilised in the future, to be more agile and responsive to any future organisational changes. It also enables organisations to implement the change in a way that cultivates the creation of a collaborative change-focused community, resulting in faster problem-solving, shared expertise, stronger support networks, increased buy-in and change resilience to name a few. Both elements lead to long-term, sustainable and successful change.
-
I had the opportunity to follow a 2-day training course in October 2018 from you on change management and still today it inspires me. I use your tools in workshops and keep your insights at my fingertips as today’s world is constantly changing.
What are change competences?
This refers to the ability of leaders, project leaders and HR BP’s to scope, prepare and implement lasting change. It includes a variety of knowledge and skills such as an understanding of the change dynamics and how to communicate change, engage with your team, create followership, manage difficult conversations, handle conflicts, set direction and align on expectations with your sponsor, colleagues, team etc.
What is change community?
This refers to the operating environment and to having a group of people all working towards the same outcome. It is a collaborative community that can both support and challenge one another. A psychologically safe environment, it is a place where individuals have high ambition and accountability to succeed on the change journey. Importantly, it is not restricted to one organisational entity and can include different ones, all working on the same change journey. All it needs is for all its members to invest something and have an interest that everything goes well. In return each member gains value and learns from each other’s expertise.
How do you build both competences and community on the same journey?In an ideal world, organisations are always prepared for any change coming their way. They have the competences, have already built the relations across entities and are ready to run. Unfortunately, in practice, this never really happens, so the next best option is to use an ongoing change.
For the leaders, project leaders and HR Business partners, this brings the advantage that:
1. The training is relevant: Individuals are more engaged because they recognize that they need the competences and can use them. Additionally, the organisation can get participants to embed the change competence training into the existing change process right away, thus enhancing the acquisition of skills.
Building competence is not just about the content delivered but also about how it is delivered. A safe, "sandbox" environment enables team members to test tools, have tough conversations, and engage in real-life training scenarios.
2. The shared experience of the transformation can be leveraged to build a community: The collective journey results in openness, vulnerability and more conflicts. When managed effectively it results in a resilient group aligned towards common goals, while valuing diverse perspectives.
A true sense of community arises from shared impact, not mission statements, and communities can provide value long after the specific change initiative that brought them together ends.
Bringing it all together
At Enabling Change, we adopt an approach where skills are continuously applied when building change competence in any organisation. We are aware that we will work with people who will be at different stages of the change curve. Some will have accepted the change and some not. However, they will all be together in the same environment and on the same journey. The conversations we facilitate will be related to their organisation, their change journey, what they need to achieve. This means they share a common ground. They are interdependent, because success in one area and failure in other will result in a failed transformation. So how do we work together?
We put the participants in an environment where they are learning from each other. By facilitating in smaller groups, working in a specific context and shifting classical change management theory into self-study, we can focus our time together on practical application and community building.
Our method in action:
A European pharma company implemented a new strategy, and the HR director wanted to equip leaders and HR BPs to implement new processes and lead their teams through change. Initially in-person, the training shifted to a flexible, on-demand virtual format due to COVID, ensuring accessibility for leaders at all times. The feedback we received confirmed that participants gained key competencies enabling them to navigate and lead the change journey successfully.
They specifically valued:
- Successful transformation and value creation through active sponsorship driven by senior leaders and HR leading and implementing change together
- Aligned case-for-change & communication and commitment throughout the change period
- Driving momentum and ownership by using an informal, organisation-wide change network
I end this article with a message we received in 2024 from one of the participants.
“I had the opportunity to follow a 2-day training course in October 2018 from you on change management and still today it inspires me. I use your tools in workshops and keep your insights at my fingertips as today’s world is constantly changing.”
It is hard to imagine stronger evidence for prioritising competence and community building during times of change.
