Accepting and Adapting to Change

Forhom by Egis prepared and led a 5-day training session in Koudougou (Burkina Faso) to strengthen the managerial and change management skills of agents from the Projet de Renforcement de la Gouvernance Locale et Administrative (PRGLA), agents from the Ministère de l'Administration territoriale et de la Décentralisation (MATD), and representatives from local authorities.

The main objective was to provide the participants with analysis tools, methods and a facilitation process to:

• understand the need for change and give it meaning;
• identify the various types of change;
• know about the causes of resistance to change, in order to remedy them and make one’s representations of change evolve;
• accept change projects and react in the face of resistance;
• know about the approach and stages of the change management process and use the appropriate management tools;
• practice the preparation of a change project.

The detailed content was as follows:

What is change? Why changing?

• Change is a step, an approach that accompanies the life of any structure.
• Is change always bad?
• Why do people resist to change? List of the main factors that generate resistance to change.

Understanding the human mechanisms associated with change

• Our difficulties in changing.
• Impact of changes on people: change perceived as a concrete, abstract or emotional breakdown. Leaving an existing known situation for a promised future one. The change in habits. Fears and risks, emotions.
• Examples of failure in change management.
• The valley of despair in a badly managed change.
• Square wheels.
• What are the strengths of change? List of the main factors that can foster change.

Tackling with resistance in front of change; understanding resistance to overcome them

• A change is announced in the structure with which you are working. You are very concerned. What to do? And what not to do?
• Accepting and overcoming resistance.
• Identifying critical factors and filling the valley of despair.
• Understanding the strategy of the actors involved in change.
• Typology of actors in front of change: proactive, passive opponents.
• Mapping of stakeholders during a change project.
• Working on oneself: using one’s own resources to overcome one’s resistance; using action forces; using the virtues and strength of character we all have.
• Acting with stakeholders: listening, negotiating, and distinguishing what can be negotiated from what cannot.

How to change: informed and agile management

• Director of an administration vs manager.
• Understanding what is expected from new managers.
• The new requirements of management.
• What is vital to succeed: the eight laws required to change one’s attitude.
• Managing a change project.
• Leader vs manager.
• Being more a leader than a manager. The leader’s role and tools: motivation, mobilisation, and delegation.

How to implement change management?

• The objectives of change management.
• The approach.
• The process to be implemented for change.
• Preparation: diagnosis, guidelines, sizing of the change project, impact assessments, and formulation of change objectives.

Two major levers for supporting change

• Communication: objectives, targets and actions, stages of communication, the communication kit in 10 slides, and the communication techniques.
• Training of the actors involved in change: training plan.

The services provided by Forhom by Egis for this training course were as follows:

• preparation of the training course;
• mobilisation of an expert trainer for 5 training days;
• training facilitation and evaluation;
• preparation and delivery of the certificates, the training report and the training documents in electronic format.