Changing Change Management: The New Innovation Imperative

The innovation imperative is clear—organizations (both public and private sector) which wish to survive and flourish in a turbulent environment need to change. But making changes in products, services, processes or business models requires careful management and continuous learning. The responsiveness to and the implementation of change has become a core capability which organizations need to develop. The good news is that we have a variety of proven and tested approaches to the challenge of ‘change management’ which can help organizations in this activity. But we are also entering an era where, as a result of significant technological and social shifts, the nature of the change process itself is changing. In particular there has been a massive increase in the potential for participation in the process in active fashion, shaping both the rate and direction of innovation. Interactive web-based technologies enable rapid mobilization and articulation of different viewpoints and fast construction of coalitions for action. At the same time the shift towards social networking is more than a passing fad—in Europe more adults in the population are now active participants on such platforms than not. Across such communities the potential for ‘democratization’ of change processes—whether in company decision-making around product or service development, or amongst citizens shaping and co-creating the services which they consume—is growing. This chapter explores the implications of this shift for our understanding and management of change and argues that, in the same way as the early (and somewhat static) models for using advanced information technologies gave way to a far more interactive perspective (Web 2.0), we may as well need new models that understand and work with ‘change management 2.0’; those which reflect the rapid shift and openness in the innovation landscape.