How to Leverage Critical Thinking in Change Management

With the “VUCA” digital new normal, Change Management becomes an ongoing capability to enable strategy execution. However, more than two-thirds of Change Management fail to achieve the expected business results. The reason so many change initiatives are not comprehensible is that they don't make fundamental sense, or lack of the logical scenario to manage change effectively. Critical thinking is more critical than ever, because the business and world becomes over-complex, with increasing speed of changes, uncertainty and ambiguity. So how to leverage critical thinking in Change Management in order to improve its success rate and catalyze digital transformation.
Leverage Critical Thinking to figure out the “Big Why” about changes: Critical thinking as the core skill are concerned ultimately with the status of claims such as evidence, recommendations, predictions, principles, analysis, especially when inferences are drawn from them. Change is chaotic, but the change management needs to be well designed and practiced systematically. It starts with leveraging Critical Thinking to figure out the “Big Why” about changes. Often, many organizations focus so heavily on the "doing" (the "how"), they lose sight of the "purpose," the "WHY" part of changes. It is the key to think critically and present the “WHY” first. Asking big WHY question is to leveraging critical thinking to dig through the root cause of changes, how to manage it and achieve more tangible results. Real change and improvement are deprogramming old mindsets, letting go of the outdated tradition or the voices from the past, and think both critically and creatively, to reprogram collective minds with new mentalities, norms and behaviors, and successful changes are often linked to the DNA of the organization itself.
A systematic Change Management scenario is based on ‘logic’ which is a key component of the process of critical thinking generally: Change Management needs to be the logical scenario of goal-setting, decision making, mindset reprogramming, process tuning, and measurement.  Most decisions on problem solving are based on ‘logic’ which is a key component of the process of critical thinking generally. You think critically when you begin to focus and delineate the factors associated with the problem, critical thinking is a multi dimensional thought processes which include many other thinking such as analysis, synthesis, creative thinking, strategic thinking, etc. This requires one to slow down with the way they think; as some people are prone to immediately jump to conclusions based on what they see and not necessarily based on what they know or how they perceive. Leverage Critical Thinking in Change Management means taking multiple perspectives into account, minimizing "agendas" or "spin," understanding the emotional component, working through the logic, reconciling differences and inconsistencies in data or sources, using a set of criteria for evaluating information and conclusions and considering unintended consequences. "Why" should not just precede "How," but should be reaffirmed at each step in the "How." Every process, every expenditure of time, money, or energy, and every assignment of resources should directly relate back to the "Why."
Critical thinking is ever-improving - it’s the fundamental of Change Management - Change for better: Critical thinking as an iterative process leads to a series of refinements based on learning and experience, rather than "good" or "bad.” Change leaders and managers should leverage critical thinking in understanding both psychology and methodology behind changes. Making observation and deepening understanding through asking the right questions, and open for varying answers. Keep pondering which factors motivate people who like changes, and the same question could be asked of those who don't like change, learning the best change practices from others, also open the eyes on the bad experiences and realistically defining and communicating the need for a change.  Figure out the tailored change management solution: Taking what is known and which needs to be understood to come up with the right solution. With a thorough understanding and thinking critically, people learn to adapt over a period of transformation slowly and steadily.
There are many flavors of changes. It could be as nature as taking a breath; or as complex as playing a jigsaw puzzle with thousands of pieces. Do not just confuse change as the simple “Let’s do it.” There are many thoughts and planning behind it. Change is never for its own sake, leverage Critical Thinking to figure out the WHY, WHY, WHO, HOW, WHEN, WHERE about changes, and build it as a critical ongoing business capability to fuel digital transformation.
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