Unlocking Success in Child Welfare

The comprehensive expertise of our consultants at the ATA Consultancy allows us to deliver sustained transformative success to child welfare organizations using change management best practices in conjunction with strategic management and project management, such as ensuring effective implementation and sustaining long-term changes. This blog explores challenges with poor change management, emphasizing the importance of helping organizations align their culture, a key component of strategic and project management theories and research.

The Importance of Change Management

Change management is a critical process every organization should undertake when implementing transformation. It helps smooth the change process to ensure the best results are achieved without resistance. ATA Consultancy is highly equipped with knowledge and expertise, and we always combine theories that best suit the organization. Below are the critical models we use:

·      John Kotter's 8-Step Change Model stresses the importance of creating urgency and establishing' a guiding coalition’  to achieve change (Kotter, 1996). 

·      Kurt Lewin’s Change Management Model provides a straightforward but powerful change management framework in its unfreeze-change-refreeze stages (Lewin, 1947).

·      ADKAR Model: A goal-centred change management model emphasizing Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement (Hiatt, 2006).

·      Burke-Litwin Model: This three-stage determinant model examines organizational performance and change, emphasizing the multiple linear relationships across several organizational components and their influences on change (Burke & Litwin, 1992).

·      Bridges Transition Model: This model focuses on psychological transitions and change by referring to managing the ‘human side’ of change (Bridges, 1991).

We combine these and other change management theories to accommodate each child welfare organization's different contexts and needs to ensure that changes are more easily implemented and maintained. This helps to steer the organization towards a culture of continuous improvement.

Strategic Management: The Blueprint for Success

In strategic management, the organization's long-term goals are identified, combined with an analysis of the competitive environments and appropriate allocating organizational resources to realize the company's goals. Michael Porter’s Five Forces framework can benefit child welfare organizations as it helps managers better understand the competitive forces of their environment and identify strategies to improve their success. (Porter wrote his Five Forces concept in 1979.) Through strategic management practices, opportunities can be identified, risks mitigated, and value can be created for stakeholders.

The Consequences of Poor Change Management

When change management is not done well, it can cause massive problems: people can resist the change, morale and engagement go down, and the project fails. Change management research firm Prosci reports that projects with good change management are six times more likely to meet their objectives than those with poor change management practices. When people resist change initiatives, it is typically due to three main reasons: a lack of clear and unified communication, the people impacted by the change not being fully consulted and engaged, and not getting training and support.

The Role of Organizational Culture

Organizational culture is imperative for the success of any change initiative. According to Edgar Schein, a recognized expert on organizational culture, culture is an ‘emergent property generated by the interplay among the psychological system of a group of individuals with common goals.’ In other words, an organizational culture is an interconnected set of shared values, beliefs and assumptions which shape the behaviours of a group of individuals in an organization. If an organization’s culture is not culturally aligned with the changes, the intervention will not have a lasting impact. For example, at ATA Consultancy, we perform cultural assessments to determine what drives the current culture and align change interventions with the desired changes so that changes are delivered structurally into the organization.

Conclusion

ATA Consultancy offers the best change, strategic, and project management. Our services provide child welfare organizations with the tools and strategies to meet the challenge of change, scaling up excellent work and ensuring a lasting, positive impact on the children and young people they serve. Child welfare organizations frequently take on change initiatives such as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) implementation; adoption, guardianship and kinship care; Signs of Safety; trauma-informed practice, etc. A key challenge is alignment with the ‘systems’ needs and ensuring that poor change management does not derail a great initiative. Equally, our work has brought organizations back to life when they realize the critical issues associated with poor change management and poor alignment with the organizational culture. ATA Consultancy works with the change effort that child welfare organizations prefer to use.  We partner with agencies to align both so the initiative chosen can be the right one for the organizations to scale up and ensure success. We help child welfare organizations get to where they want to be by working towards the desired organizational culture as it is or as they want it to be. We are an agile team, ready to partner with child welfare organizations to do whatever it takes to develop the future it desires. With ATA Consultancy, your organization wins, your team wins and the children and the communities you serve win.

References

Bridges, W. (1991). Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change. Addison-Wesley.

Burke, W. W., & Litwin, G. H. (1992). A Causal Model of Organizational Performance and Change. Journal of Management.

Hiatt, J. M. (2006). ADKAR: A Model for Change in Business, Government, and Community. Prosci.

Kotter, J. P. (1996). Leading Change. Harvard Business Review Press.

Lewin, K. (1947). Frontiers in Group Dynamics. Human Relations.

Porter, M. E. (1979). How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy. Harvard Business Review.

 Prosci. (2020). Best Practices in Change Management. Prosci.

Schein, E. H. (1992). Organizational Culture and Leadership. Jossey-Bass.