6 Change Management Stages A Management Checklist to Guide Your Efforts in Managing Change · Share · Pin · Share · Email ••• BY SUSAN M. HEATHFIELD  Updated January 17, 2020 Experience 6 Stages to Effectively Manage Change  Change is a complex process. You must consider many issues when approaching an opportunity to change or bring about change. The need for change management skills is a constant in the quickly changing world of organizations.  The following six-stage model of change will assist you to understand change and to make changes in your work unit, department, or company effectively. The model also helps you understand the role of the change agent, the person or group that is taking primary responsibility for the accomplishment of the desired changes. For change to occur, you do need leadership to communicate, provide training, and share constancy of purpose. An organization must complete each of the steps in the model for changes to effectively transpire. However, completion of the steps may occur in a somewhat different order than appears here. In some situations, the boundaries between the stages are unclear. What Affects Change Management?  Organizational characteristics such as the level of employee involvement and empowerment affect how changes proceed. Units that desire and/or have experience with a greater degree of people involvement can bring people willingly into the change process at an earlier stage. Characteristics of the changes such as size and scope, also affect the change process. Large changes require more planning. Changes that involve a total organization will require more planning and the involvement of more people than making changes in a single department. Changes that have widespread support as well as those that employees view as a gain rather than as a loss are easier to implement. When you take the right steps, involve the appropriate people, and tend to the potential impacts of change, resistance to change is reduced. These change management steps will help your organization make necessary and desired changes. This favorite quote about change from the book, "Flight of the Buffalo" is particularly apt. "Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what they have—and underestimate the value of what they may gain by giving it up." -- Belasco & Stayer Make sense? Fit your experience? Now, on with the change management stages. Change Management Stages  These change management stages will assist you to approach change in your organization in a systematic manner that will help you effectively implement the change. Stage 1: Initiation  In this stage, one or more people in the organization realize the need for change. There is a nagging feeling that something is not right. This awareness can come from many sources, both inside and outside of the organization. It can also occur at any level in the organization. The people who are most familiar with the work often have the most accurate perceptions abou.

1. 6 Change Management Stages
A Management Checklist to Guide Your Efforts in Managing
Change
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BY SUSAN M. HEATHFIELD
Updated January 17, 2020
Experience 6 Stages to Effectively Manage Change
Change is a complex process. You must consider many issues
when approaching an opportunity to change or bring about
change. The need for change management skills is a constant in
the quickly changing world of organizations.
The following six-stage model of change will assist you to
understand change and to make changes in your work unit,
department, or company effectively. The model also helps you
understand the role of the change agent, the person or group
that is taking primary responsibility for the accomplishment of
the desired changes. For change to occur, you do need
leadership to communicate, provide training, and share
constancy of purpose.
An organization must complete each of the steps in the model
for changes to effectively transpire. However, completion of the
steps may occur in a somewhat different order than appears
here. In some situations, the boundaries between the stages are
unclear.
What Affects Change Management?
Organizational characteristics such as the level of employee
involvement and empowerment affect how changes proceed.
Units that desire and/or have experience with a greater degree
of people involvement can bring people willingly into the

2. change process at an earlier stage.
Characteristics of the changes such as size and scope, also
affect the change process. Large changes require more planning.
Changes that involve a total organization will require more
planning and the involvement of more people than making
changes in a single department.
Changes that have widespread support as well as those that
employees view as a gain rather than as a loss are easier to
implement.
When you take the right steps, involve the appropriate people,
and tend to the potential impacts of change, resistance to change
is reduced. These change management steps will help your
organization make necessary and desired changes.
This favorite quote about change from the book, "Flight of the
Buffalo" is particularly apt.
"Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what
they have—and underestimate the value of what they may gain
by giving it up." -- Belasco & Stayer
Make sense? Fit your experience? Now, on with the change
management stages.
Change Management Stages
These change management stages will assist you to approach
change in your organization in a systematic manner that will
help you effectively implement the change.
Stage 1: Initiation
In this stage, one or more people in the organization realize the
need for change. There is a nagging feeling that something is
not right. This awareness can come from many sources, both
inside and outside of the organization. It can also occur at any
level in the organization.
The people who are most familiar with the work often have the
most accurate perceptions about the need for change.
Organization members may experience the need to change by
viewing other organizations, benchmarking, or bringing in new
senior leaders with experience in other organizations.
In large organizations, sometimes changes are imposed from

3. outside of the immediate work unit. And, any size company may
need to change because of changing customer needs.
Stage 2: Investigation
In this stage, people in the organization begin
to investigate options for change. They begin to create a vision
or picture of what the organization could look like after the
changes. They should also determine, at this stage, the readiness
of the organization to change.
Stage 3: Intention
In this stage, the change agents in the organization decide upon
the course of change. They create a vision of where the
organization should be and could be in the future. Planning and
definition of major strategies occur during this stage of the
change process. Recognition that change always requires
a change in the organization's culture is important.
Stage 4: Introduction
In this stage, the organization begins the changes. The
organization must have goals for the change and strategies for
reaching those goals. This is the stage where personal reactions
are more likely to occur.
Leaders must begin the change by changing. Leaders and other
change agents must establish clear expectations for changes.
Involve as many of the employees in the organization as
possible in initiating and implementing the change plan.
Stage 5: Implementation
In this stage, the change is managed and moves forward.
Recognize that all will not go perfectly. Change always takes
longer than anticipated. Change activities are ignored as
employees tackle their day-to-day responsibilities.
Maintain constancy of purpose. The organizational systems
must be redesigned to support the change. Provide recognition
and rewards (positive consequences) for people who exhibit
changed behaviors. Fire people who don't participate in and
support the changes sooner rather than allowing them to remain
and poison your progress.
One Vice President at a scientific manufacturing company said

4. that his biggest mistake when he was trying to transform his
workplace was to allow non-supportive managers to stay 18
months. He should have fired them much sooner was his
conclusion.
Stage 6: Integration
In this stage, the changes become the norm and are fully
adopted. This may not happen for 18 months after changes are
initiated. A total organizational change can take 2-8 years.
When the changes have been successfully integrated into your
organization, a new employee would not realize that the
organization had changed.
The Bottom Line
Follow these stages to implement changes, even organizational
transformation, to ensure that the changes you want to
implement are successfully integrated into the fabric of your
organization.