… and implementing change management programs that prove unsuccessful can be a costly affair. Yet as 21st century organizations are forced to continuously adapt to increasing internal and external forces, change is inevitable.

Although organizational change is constant, numerous studies have shown that the change failure rate has continued to hover near 70% for over 20 years.

Many factors contribute to failed organizational change initiatives; over budget, over time, unsatisfactory results, etc., but it’s a single factor lurking beneath the surface of an organization that is the most problematic; resistance to change.

People resist change because they feel as if they are losing something important to them. Organizational change can affect a strategy, person, system, technology, organizational structure, or physical environment which people have become attached to.

Resisting change is not a behavioral problem. Instead, it’s a strong instinctual response.

The Change Diagnostic Index© provides you the analytical “human data” you need to:

• Assess individual and organizational resistance to change, change readiness, and areas of potential difficulty.
• Identify the emerging change related behaviors.
  
• Measure the intensity of the behaviors.
  
• Track the resistance over time.
• Mitigate the resistance by employing specific strategies.
• Store the “human data” collected in a database.
• Predict and anticipate strategy for future change initiatives based on historical data.

Collectively, these key benefits will help you optimize current and future change management. When change is implemented, they allow for analysis of the human dynamics going on beneath the surface of your organization.

The Change Diagnostic Index© focuses on a composite of employee symptoms/behaviors resulting from an organizational change initiative. Employee responses are related to six patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior, which can potentially impact the organization during times of change.

1. Anxiety
2. Frustration
3. Retardation of Development
4. Rejection of the Environment
5. Refusal to Participate
6. Withdrawal

1. Decreased Morale
2. Decreased Productivity
3. Decreased Motivation
4. Increased Conflict
5. Increased Absenteeism
6. Increased Turnover

1. Enhance and Increase Support from Leadership/Sponsorship
2. Increase Education/Training with the Identified Change
3. Integrate Individual Coaching
4. Improve Communication – Subordinate, Colleague, and Supervisor
5. Evaluate Employee Engagement and Support
6. Monitor Job Satisfaction and Commitment.

Through the analytical “human data” collected, the Change Diagnostic Index© will assist your consultant or change agent to define and implement mitigation and intervention strategies. These are customized to your specific change management initiative.

The Change Diagnostic Index© is a 54 question survey that takes about 15 minutes to complete. The answers are based on a scale from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree” with corresponding numerical values of 1 to 5.

An example question is, “Are things changing too fast in your organization?”

The tone of the questionnaire is similar to the “what is out of balance in your body’s systems?” that you fill out in a doctor’s office. The Change Diagnostic Index© is designed to focus on what, if anything, is out of balance in the organizational “system” before, during, and after a change initiative.

The Change Diagnostic Index© is optimally administered to first establish the baseline before the change, and again during and after the implementation, in order to alert the change agent to any ongoing or new challenges.

The analytical “human data” collected is then aggregated into custom reports for you and your organization.

PivotPoint Business Solutions, President and Principal Consultant

Dr. Victoria M. Grady completed her Doctoral Studies at the George Washington University in May 2005. Her dissertation focused on the inherent loss of stability suffered by organizations introducing and implementing organizational change initiatives. The research resulted in a validated model (Change Diagnostic Index©) explaining the tendency of individuals, often subconsciously, to struggle, resist, and potentially disrupt organizational change initiatives.

In addition to her work with PivotPoint Business Solutions, Dr. Grady is currently an Assistant Professorial Lecturer in the Department of Organizational Science within the Columbian School of Arts and Sciences at the George Washington University.

PivotPoint Business Solutions, Chief Executive Officer

Dr. James D. Grady received his D.M.D. at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, in 1971 and his residency training and a Master of Science in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1974. Dr. Grady was the Founder and Managing Partner at Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery of East Alabama from 1976 to 2009.

In his practice and as an avocation, he has been a keen observer and student of behavior. This has given him the opportunity to do research and speculate regarding the various circles of cause and effect in chronic pain patients and in employees and colleagues especially when under various types of stress. These interests have led him on what he describes as a fascinating journey of discovery both in his field and in the field of management in general.

Myron’s clients represent a broad range of global Fortune 500 companies and industries, including: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Balfour Beatty, Microsoft, DOW Chemical, Clark Construction, ExxonMobil, Bridgestone USA, BNY Mellon, Choice International and Northrop Grumman.

“The Change Diagnostic Index© is the most comprehensive organizational diagnostic I’ve encountered in over 30 years of experience. I highly recommend it to anyone in the ‘throws’ of organizational change and transition.”

Kristen M. Lilly has over 14 years of experience in the U.S. healthcare industry as an operations director at the hospital and corporate levels. Kristen’s expertise is broad in scope including health information management, quality metric analysis, EMR implementation, and training and organizational development. Kristen has presented at the national level as well as provided numerous training and development sessions for departmental teams.

“HR initiatives are often viewed as ‘touchy-feely’ and hard to quantify; however, the Change Diagnostic Index© not only puts a number on an initiative, but also identifies priorities for communication.”

• Qualitative interviews can be very effective in determining how employees relate to their organization, however even if done correctly by carefully trained interviewers the findings are subjective and difficult to standardize repeatedly, not to mention time consuming and expensive.
• The Change Diagnostic Index© was created to provide the change agent with an efficient way of obtaining objective and repeatable measurements from an organization’s employees. These metrics can then be used to follow the pattern of responses that emerge during and as a result of a change implementation process.
• The Change Diagnostic Index© is significantly less time consuming and much less expensive than other assessments on the market.

• The Change Diagnostic Index© identifies and measures behaviors, perceptions, and attitudes that emerge in a collection of individuals in response to a change initiative.
• The index provides a monitor of your organization’s ability to function effectively before, during and after the change implementation process. This provides you with information enabling you to direct and redirect resources in the most cost efficient manner.

• Rather than starting by using data extrapolated from other companies, we prefer to start by first helping you access your organization and the unique specific aspects unique to that organization.
• ALL organizations are unique, just as each person is unique. For this reason, we have found that it is best to first create a baseline that reflects the actual nature and functionality of your organization, and then work to optimize your organization’s unique capability as you move into a new change initiative.
• While our process does not generalize the results obtained from other companies, we can provide access to all available data and experiences that may prove to be helpful to your organization.