I hate the phrase “change management”

September 7, 2007 · Filed Under Finding Your Job 

I don’t know what it is but for some reason the phrase really bugs me.

I hate jargon. Jargon, to me at least, is taking the easy way out. With jargon, you don’t have to say what you’re actually doing, people have to try to figure out what you’re doing. So while you were “creating synergistic relationships” and “professionally managing organizational change,” somebody else has you beat in my book. Why is that? Because instead of jargon, they told me what they did: “I combined two teams that led to an increase productivity by 75%” and “I led three teams of 60 through a merger with one of our leading competitors and still met goal for fiscal year.”

You know why the jargon sayers didn’t put down specifics? Because they didn’t do it. At least, that is my assumption. It has to be. If I hire you and it doesn’t work because the change you’ve managed for the past five years is changing the copy paper, that isn’t going to look so great on me. And if you were doing something significant or noteworthy with those skills, you would have wrote it on your resume, right?

Right?

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Comments

4 Responses to “I hate the phrase “change management””

  1. hrgal on September 7th, 2007 1:24 pm

    AMEN! I hate jargon too. I once worked for a company where a typical employee would stroll up to your cubicle and say something like “I need to have a dialogue with you regarding your interface with the vendor management committee’s P.O. improvement sub committee at 1800 hours mmmmmk?” Then my head would explode.

    [Reply]

  2. Chris Traynor on October 5th, 2007 10:52 am

    Dear HR Guy,

    Hi - my name’s Chris Traynor. I’m a writer and consultant with some decent HR experience (although my SPHR certification is up for renewal again in December and I’m starting to fret).

    I learned about your blog just now after reading a quick article on the “trend” (real?, not real?) of googling an applicant to check out their after-school activities, if you know what I mean. In doing so, I came across your feelings about the term “Change Management” and it struck me because I feel the same way. A few years back I wrote an article entitled “Shift Happens - Fighting The Change Myth” for a trade magazine. As you might guess, it was about “CHANGE” and what it all means to a small to medium-sized organization trying to grow and succeed in this world. I thought you might enjoy the way it opens.

    “Human beings are masters of change. We are change monsters with a black belt in adaptation. As a species, we are both the crouching tiger and the hidden dragon of change. To further kick this dead horse (and to borrow from an ’80’s rock anthem), we’ve seen a million changes and we’ve rocked them all!

    Contrary to conventional wisdom, we have not been set to explode when we hear the dreaded “C” word. But, in a master stroke of self-fulfilling prophecy, we have been convinced otherwise; spawning many “you need fixing” books, urgent training programs and case studies devoted to helping us, and our business, “manage change.” There is, however, a bit of a problem with this widely-held notion - it is a myth. One can no more “manage change” than catch the tiny particles of dust suspended in a stream of light. Change is many things, but manageable is not one of them.

    In this, the 21st century, you will find mankind online, networked, global, hyper-aware, multi-tasking and contemplating the colonization of other worlds. From hunter-gatherer to agrarian … from industrialist to the digital age, we have pushed on through massive change. This is our DNA imprint. This is our genetic heritage. When it comes to life on Earth, there is only one certainty - shift happens.

    Tomorrow is a wonderful place. Your objective … your job is to be most ready for the most likely transitions. Find your future and shift.”

    THANKS FOR THE SPACE TO SHARE THIS (hope you liked it). To anyone who might have read this far, I would say take the self-defeating aspects of “change” off the table. Don’t reinforce the idea that change is very difficult for people. If you allow this misconception to live on in your business (or on your team … or with your children), you are priming those people for failure. Challenge the change myth at every turn. Prepare everyone to reframe their concept of change into one of “transitions” and “shifts.” Transitional shifts are universal and natural. Remind everyone of the heritage of their species and our unmatched ability to thrive through adaptation. We are change monsters.

    Best wishes to everyone. Keep your eye on your country and take care of it. Don’t lose it because we can’t afford to buy you another one.

    Chris Traynor
    Wayne, New Jersey
    USA

    [Reply]

  3. Recruiting Watch - Today Top Blog Posts on Recruiting - Powered by SocialRank on October 9th, 2007 1:06 am

    [...] I hate the phrase “change management” [...]

  4. Dr. Henry Hornstein on September 12th, 2008 10:58 pm

    This person, Chris Traynor, has his/her head firmly wedged between his/her buttocks. The study of how to help people adapt to change is not about jargon. Rather than “change management” being a myth, the many statements of “fact” that appear in his/her post are myths. People may indeed be able to accommodate change, but it is not the “close your eyes and it will happen” phenomenon that is described. Has this person heard of resistance to change? There are many instances of the consequences of its mismanagement. Moreover, it is a phenomenon that has been studied quite extensively in the management literature. Mike Hammer, the progenitor of business process reengineering, admitted in 1996 that the failure to attend to the effective leadership and management of change are among the main reasons that so many change efforts fail to reach effective outcomes. And the Standish Group has clearly demonstrated that an outlandishly large number of IT and IS implementations fail or are significantly over-budget because of the failure to effectively address change management and change leadership issues.

    So I would say that hating the phrase “change management” is at best misplaced, and at worst a criminal failure to attend to a very important phenomenon.

    [Reply]

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