3 Skills Change Managers Need to Manage Technology

The rapid rise of change management technology requires us, as change professionals, to evolve our skill sets.

Especially in the practice of change management, integrating and using technological advancements is crucial to drive successful change initiatives.

As a result, we must continue to develop new competencies that enable us to thrive in our work using technology.

1. Strategic Technological Perception

It all starts with being able to decide which emerging technologies are relevant to the organization’s specific needs.

Do we need project management systems like Monday, Asana, or Teamwork? AI chatbots? Technologies like Slack, Teams and other instant messaging programs that let us communicate directly with each other?

Are we looking at new ways of delivering microlearning to our stakeholders using a combination of 7Taps, ChatGPT, chatbot, Perplexity and Poe on the mobile phone?

Will software as a system (SAAS) providers in change management work enablement align well with the way we are completing our work or should we create our own system tools using SmartSheets?

Whatever the case may be, as change management professionals, we must keep up with the technology trends that are impacting our work in order to stay in the game.

2. Digital Fluency

Being an effective change manager requires proficiency in digital tools, platforms, and the overall digital ecosystem.

This means knowing where artificial intelligence, Big Data analytics, and automation come into play.

How can we give stakeholders, senior executives, and employees the information they need without overwhelming and confusing them?

As we work through questions like these, we become able to anticipate challenges and collaborate more effectively since we have more accurate information.

3. Data-Driven Decision-Making

Artificial intelligence, employee surveys, absentee rates, retention, and turnover metrics, and more provide useful, helpful data.

Coupled with sound data literacy skills, we can interpret data analytics and translate them into actionable insights for our change management strategies and plans. Areas where we had to make assumptions based on high ambiguity will now have more information to help us understand the risks associated with what we didn’t know before.

By foreseeing risks and developing countermeasures to the information that the data provides, we can reduce or eliminate the possibly of derailing our change initiative. Yes, this technology really exists and is coming to us very soon.

Additionally, by automating the data, we can spend more time on building sponsor and stakeholder relationships to ensure that our project is increasing its ability to deliver the adoption metrics for which we hold ourselves accountable.

Conclusion: It All Starts With Us

From work automation to behavioral insights, change management technology can impact our organizations and add value to the bottom-line in new ways that were not possible even 5 years ago.

We’ve heard that the most powerful computer ever invented is the human brain. Now even that statement is being questioned.

Whether or not that’s the case, change management technology is only as effective as the human beings who use and leverage it.

Failing with one technological change makes it more likely future attempts at technology change meet greater resistance and lower adoption rates, given the lack of confidence caused by previous failures.

Therefore, it’s up to us as facilitators of change to navigate around and past these potential pitfalls and lead the way.