ChangeOps: In an Era of Relentless Transformation...

ChangeOps unifies all types of organizational change, from Organizational Change Management (OCM) to project-based and continuous improvement initiatives. It focuses on realizing value by creating a seamless flow of change along the value chain, leveraging value workshops, and integrating both digital and non-digital value propositions. It's an important part of any strategy to build organisational change maturity and acts in this stead as the deliverer of value from Change!

Contents:

• News in a Nutshell..
• Article: The Backlog of Change: A Growing Challenge in Modern Organizations
• Podcast: Change Under Investigation, a short bite on a poignant topic!
• Further reading: Connect with a broad range of articles based on this newsletters theme.
• The previous issue: Check it out.. all our editions connect into one larger concept.
• A Great takeaway... something you can keep or something you can download...
• Call to action: Share your thoughts & give your input into the Change profession report!

News in a Nutshell...

This month has been a busy month with all sorts of new developments and initiation of some great initiatives to boot. While we can't share everything yet, we can share a few of the nuggets that are ready to go:

• Collaboration news: Dei Institute - Online University (DIOU) proudly introduces the Journal of Applied Interdisciplinary Insights (JAII), a groundbreaking academic publication fostering collaboration across disciplines. JAII brings together esteemed scholars to develop high-quality, peer-reviewed research addressing global challenges in leadership, technology, education, and social sciences. The JAII team operates independently from the university's leadership, ensuring academic integrity and diverse perspectives. With a commitment to excellence, JAII aims to bridge theory and practice, shaping the future of interdisciplinary inquiry. Stay tuned for the inaugural issue and call for papers! Isolde will be joining this initiative as a member of the editorial board lead by Chief Editor Dr. Casey LaFrance .
• I:DNA website is now up and running and ready for viewing. I:DNA is the new brand name and home for all activities I am organising around the management of change. With three distinct pillars of Form, Evolve and Innovate, there is something for everyone interested in change. We have done a soft launch already in February and the full launch is coming in September. This website includes a growing number of blog articles, templates and further change resources that can currently be downloaded freely.
• Joining the Neuro Diversity foundation as Executive board member Organisational Development. Check out the link for more information and my introduction to the foundation. Check out the Foundations page here and get in touch if you would be interested to get connected into the mix.

Article: The Backlog of Change: A Growing Challenge in Modern Organizations

Introduction: The Era of Relentless Transformation

Organizations today are rolling out change initiatives at unprecedented speeds. Whether driven by technological advancements, market dynamics, regulatory shifts, or evolving consumer expectations, the need to adapt has become a cornerstone of modern business strategy. Yet, this unrelenting pace creates a paradox: while companies may appear successful in implementing change on paper, the unseen toll on employees is steadily growing.

This "backlog of change" doesn’t just lead to fatigue; it risks creating a workforce too exhausted to adapt. The outcome? Reduced productivity, diminished innovation, and a slow erosion of organizational resilience that might not be apparent on the surface until a point of no return. The challenge is no longer merely avoiding change fatigue but addressing the deeper issue of cumulative burnout, which can leave even the most talented employees struggling to recover for years. Training resilience, scoping and change capability can address some of the issues, but a new approach needs to be taken to this new normal of relentless transformation.

The Backlog of Change: A Hidden Burden

Change initiatives are designed to drive efficiency, foster innovation, and keep organizations competitive. However, the unintended consequence is often an ever-growing accumulation of unfinished transitions. This comes together with organisational debt in the form of outdated structures and governance that also play their part in the burden story. This backlog arises when:

• Multiple Rollouts impacting the same stakeholder groups: Mist employees can manage one or two major change initiatives at one time and be effective. With multiple impacting rollouts, the amount of change increases cumulatively while the anchor of what's not changing can also be easily lost.
• Continuous Rollouts Overlap: Employees are expected to adapt to new systems, processes, and structures before fully integrating the last set of changes. Resulting in some outcomes not being properly embedded and starting initiatives not getting the proper traction for success while still requiring investment.
• Inadequate Downtime: There’s no breathing room for employees to consolidate learnings or adjust to a new normal.
• Misaligned Priorities: Strategic goals often shift rapidly, leaving employees unclear about which changes are most critical. In the worse cases the organisations strategic goals can diametrically shift leaving current midway projects aligned to old strategy now obsolete.

The Scale of the Problem

A report by Gartner (2022) indicates that over 45% of employees experience change fatigue, while 25% report experiencing burnout due to excessive organizational change. These figures illustrate that companies are not just facing resistance but are actively eroding the capacity of their workforce to sustain change. Combine this with the cost of attrition and hiring and we soon come to a conclusion that companies need to develop another strategy to change than simply do and hope that ‘this one’ won't kill the work force.

From Fatigue to Exhaustion

In the past, "change fatigue", the feeling of being overwhelmed by frequent change, was the main concern. This term came about as a regularly used word in the change world ten or more years ago in a time when employees felt fatigued by one major change. Today, however, many organizations face a deeper issue: change exhaustion. Here’s how the two differ... Read further via the link below:

Podcast Chat: Change Under Investigation...

Introducing Change Under Investigation, a new podcast tackling big topics taken into an audio podcast that can be listened to anywhere where you are. Check out our episodes here...

Further Reading...

Check out the previous issue of ChangeOps Newsletter:

Great takeaway...

Each Newsletter issue, there will be a sharable and where possible an awesome downloadable resource. This issues takeaway is this White paper on building organisational Change capability by FUTURE:CM:

Free to Download from this link (Academia.com): https://www.academia.edu/96132653/Whitepaper_Building_organisational_Change_Maturity_by_FUTURE_CM?source=swp_share

Call to Action:

Share your thoughts & give your input into the Change profession report! We are gathering your feedback via a form you can find here, all results will be shared in a white paper called the Profession report.

These newsletter are evolving with all of your questions, comments and insights. Please share a response to this newsletter, consider content you would like to see, questions the current content might raise or adding your own collaborative perspective to the mix. Help me build relevant innovation of our beloved profession!