Whether you're planning something as small as a new app rollout or as significant as a complete restructuring, having an effective change management process in place is a must, especially since a McKinsey survey of nearly 3,200 executives found that only one transformation in three succeeds. But don't worry, we have everything you need to know to be an effective change agent for any new solution.

What is change management?

Change management is a systematic approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from their current state to a desired future state. It focuses on the people side of change—helping employees adopt new processes, technologies, or organizational structures. Without proper change management, even the best initiatives fail due to resistance and poor adoption, a significant hurdle when a PwC survey found that 44% don't understand why organizational changes are necessary in the first place.

Why is a change management process important?

Poor change management creates a vicious cycle: failed initiatives lead to employee distrust, which makes future changes even harder. Organizations without structured change processes face:

• Low adoption rates: Employees resist or ignore new systems

• Wasted resources: Projects fail to deliver expected ROI

• Competitive stagnation: Inability to adapt to market changes

The first step in a good change management process is knowing the why behind the change, and then following it up with clear communication and an incentive to change. After all, not getting buy-in is one of the main ways change management processes fail, but it's not the only one. Get a deep dive into why change management efforts fail.

Top reasons changes go wrong

• The reason behind the change is poorly understood or communicated

• Leadership doesn't buy in

• The right stakeholders aren't part of the process

• Implementation isn't well thought out

• There's a lack of short or long-term follow-through

• The process is led without empathy

Change management process terminology

If you want to excel at change management, you'll need to learn the lingo. Here's a quick cheat sheet.

Change management model

A change management model is a pre-built structure (informed by a lot of real-world experimentation) for crafting an effective change management process within a company. Common models are ADKAR, Lewin's, Kotter's, McKinsey's, and Kübler-Ross's.

Change management process

A change management process is the end-to-end implementation of a change within an organization.

Change management plan

A change management plan is the specific way change is effected within the larger process. Here is our expert guide to writing yours.

Types of organizational change

Change isn't one-size-fits-all. Understanding the type of change you're implementing helps you tailor your approach. Most organizational changes fall into one of these categories:

• Developmental Change: This involves improving existing skills, processes, or procedures. Think of it as optimizing what you already do, like rolling out an update to a software tool your team already uses.

• Transitional Change: This type of change replaces an old process or system with something entirely new. Migrating from one CRM to another is a classic example. It requires careful management to move from the old state to the new state.

• Transformational Change: This is the most significant type of change, altering the company's culture, strategy, and core operations. A merger, acquisition, or a fundamental shift in business model are examples of transformational change.

Top organizational change management risks

• Employee confusion, stress, and burnout

• Lack of faith that changes will have a successful outcome leading to a high organizational resistance to change

• A seemingly "chaotic" workplace

• High employee turnover leading to loss of institutional knowledge

• Projects put on hold or abandoned altogether

• Poor customer satisfaction leading to negative brand associations

• Lower overall business efficiency

Change management models and frameworks

While you can create your own process, established models provide proven starting points:

• Kotter's 8-Step Model: Sequential approach focusing on urgency, coalition building, and cultural anchoring

• ADKAR Model: Individual-focused framework covering Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement

• Lewin's 3-Stage Model: Simple approach with Unfreeze, Change, and Refreeze phases

What are the five steps of change management?

In order to set your organization down the path of successful change (and mitigate potential risks), there are five major steps to take.

1. Prepare for Change

Preparation involves more than logistics—it requires understanding the human element.

• Assess current culture: Identify how existing behaviors support or hinder the change.

• Gather feedback: Understand employee concerns and current pain points.

• Identify stakeholders: Determine who needs to champion the change at each level.

2. Make a Change Management Plan and Communicate the Strategy and Vision

Once you understand how to position your change for organizational buy-in, determine the scope, craft a rollout plan, involve the right stakeholders, and define how you’ll measure success. Clearly communicate the why behind the change and address how it impacts each group within the organization.

3. Implement the Organizational Change

Put your plan into action while maintaining agility. Solicit feedback at every stage to identify where adjustments are needed. This approach not only helps prevent long-term failure but also sustains buy-in as employees see their feedback incorporated along the way.

4. Integrate the Change Within Organizational Culture and Processes

After rollout, reinforce the change to prevent teams from reverting to old habits. Encourage long-term adoption through incentives, documentation, ongoing communication, and visible modeling by leadership to embed the new behaviors into daily operations.

5. Review the Change Impact

Evaluate how successful the change has been by reviewing your predefined KPIs and before/after metrics. Conduct a post-mortem to capture lessons learned, identify remaining gaps, and assess how sustainable the new behaviors are across the organization.

Change management best practices

Beyond any specific model or process, certain principles consistently lead to better outcomes. Keep these best practices in mind to increase your chances of success.

• Start with the 'why': Ensure every stakeholder, from leadership to individual contributors, understands the reason for the change and the intended benefits. When one company reframed its change story to be more holistic, it lifted employee motivation measures from 35.4 percent to 57.1 percent in just one month.

• Secure visible leadership sponsorship: Change needs to be championed from the top. Active and visible executive support is one of the top predictors of success.

• Communicate clearly and often: Create a communication plan that delivers the right message to the right people at the right time. Don't be afraid to over-communicate.

• Empower employees to participate: Involve employees in the process. Ask for feedback, create change champion networks, and give people a sense of ownership. For example, after analyzing how its floor plan affected communication, one bank redesigned its space to encourage collaboration, and its overall performance rose by 10 percent.

• Provide adequate training and resources: Don't just tell people what's changing; give them the knowledge and tools they need to adapt successfully. This is a worthwhile investment, as PwC found that 74% of workers are willing to build new skills when given the right opportunity and support.

How to create an effective change management process for your organization

Now that you know how to run a smooth change management process, you might be wondering what steps you need to take to create that process in the first place. Here's what you need to do:

Identify the desired change and goals

Change for change's sake isn't helpful to anyone. Step one is to figure out exactly what needs to change, and why. Not only does this clarify things like scope and timeline, it also helps you identify who needs to be involved and at what level.

Involve key stakeholders and present the business case

Having the right stakeholders involved is key. After all, they're going to be the ones helping you properly implement change! They need to be bought in before anyone else and can help you identify the best way to prepare the organization for what's coming.

Plan for change

Here's where you want to document what your key performance indicators will be throughout the change process. You'll want to grab snapshots of your current state in order to judge success at pre-identified progress points (as well as after the process is complete).

Determine resources and measurements of success

What do you need to effectively implement the change? What do you want the future state to look like? Be as granular as possible in determining success metrics.

Provide clear communication from start to finish

No one likes being in the dark! Make sure your process, checkpoints, and metrics for success are visible to everyone who'll be affected — and frequently solicit feedback, so that you can...

Manage resistance and improve the impact of the change

Again, change is hard. Making sure people feel heard can help you reduce resistance levels and make the process easier to undertake. Additionally, occasional reminders of the why behind the change and how it will benefit those affected can keep everyone working toward a common goal.

Recognize the change management project's success

At the end of the process (or, better yet, at each big milestone) celebrate what you and your team have accomplished. Positive feedback makes any future plans for change that much easier to buy into.

Review impact and improve your change management process for the future

Recognize that there's always room for improvement. It's called a process for a reason. What worked for you years ago might need to be completely overhauled now that you have a new team/organization/product. Take what you've learned and adapt.

How to ensure you have the right change management tools

Review your change management toolkit

Equip yourself for change management success by using the right tools for the job. Here are some of the best solutions:

Building sustainable change with your AI source of truth

Successful change management extends beyond rollout—it requires creating a trusted layer of truth that reinforces new behaviors. During transitions, employees need reliable access to correct information.

By connecting your company's knowledge into one brain, teams can interact with accurate information through an AI Knowledge Agent in their existing tools.

When processes, policies, and tools change, you can correct the information once, and the right answer propagates everywhere. This creates a continuously improving knowledge base that supports lasting change and prevents teams from reverting to old habits. To see how Guru can become your AI Source of Truth and anchor your change management efforts, watch a demo.