Change management plays an important role in any organisation since the task of managing change is not an easy one. When we say managing change we mean to say that making changes in a planned and systemic fashion. With reference to the IT projects we can say the change in the versions of a project and managing these versions properly. Changes in the organisation or a project can be initiated from within the organisation or externally. For example a product that is popular among the customers may undergo a change in design based on the triggering factor like a competitive product from some other manufacturer. This is an example of external factor that triggers a change within the organisation. How the organisation responds to these changes is what that is more concerned. Managing these changes come under change management. Reactive and proactive responses to these changes are possible from an organisation.

Change management is done by many independent consultants who claim to be experts in these areas. These consultants manage the changes for their clients. They manage changes or help the client make the changes or take up the task themselves to make the changes that must be made. An area of change that needs attention is selected and certain models, methods, techniques and tools are used for making these changes that are necessary for the organisation.

When there is a process in an organisation it is not an easy task to make changes to this process immediately. Sometimes a single organisation may have varied business entities and changes in an entity may be reflected in another entity. In such organisations changes are not so easy. There are different types of organisations which have many branches across the world with varied cultures. Implementing a change in such organisations is a task by itself.

The change process can be thought of a process which stops the current process, makes the necessary changes to the current process and the run the new process. It is easy said than implemented. Stopping a current process in some industry is fatal for that organisation. Hence it has to be done in steps which have the minimal effect in the process. These changes can not take place for a longer time in the organisation since that may also be a disaster for the organisation. The involvement of the staff concerned is also very important for the change process to be smooth.

The change process could also be considered as a problem solving situation. The change that is taking place could be the result of a problem that has occurred. You should know that a problem is a situation that requires some action to be taken positively to handle that situation. This positive action is known as problem solving. The change process could be problem solving for a particular situation. In this process there is a move from one to state to another so that the problem gets solved. The change process is leaving the current state and moving to the final state through some structured organised process.

Managing the changes in an organisation requires a broad set of skills like political skills, analytical skills, people skills, system skills, and business skills. Having good analytical skills will make you a good change agent. You should evaluate the financial and political impacts of the changes that can take place. You should know that following a particular process at that instant would fetch you immediate financial effects and start that process so that the change process is noted by the management. The workflow has to be changed in such a manner to reflect the financial changes that are taking place. Operations and systems in the organization should be reconfigured in such a manner that you get the desired financial impact.

Hence change management plays an important role in an organisation. This allows the organisation to give a reactive or a proactive response to the changes that happen internally or externally. Knowing the change management and its process would help an organization and it s processes to be stable.

To learn more about this process, check out our Change Management Course, which provides in depth change management training.  It further offers a detailed examination of the change process and how a leader overcomes resistance to change.

Ref: Managment-Hub.com

Improving your body language can make a big difference in your people skills, attractiveness and general mood. There is no specific advice on how to use your body language. What you do might be interpreted in several ways, depending on the setting and who you are talking to. You’ll probably want to use your body language differently when talking to your boss compared to when you talk to a girl/guy you’re interested in. These are some common interpretations of body language and often more effective ways to communicate with your body.

First, to change your body language you must be aware of your body language. Notice how you sit, how you stand, how you use you hands and legs, what you do while talking to someone. You might want to practice in front of a mirror. Yeah, it might seem silly but no one is watching you. This will give you good feedback on how you look to other people and give you an opportunity to practise a bit before going out into the world.

Another tip is to close your eyes and visualize how you would stand and sit to feel confident, open and relaxed or whatever you want to communicate. See yourself move like that version of yourself. Then try it out. You might also want observe friends, role models, movie stars or other people you think has good body language. Observe what they do and you don’t. Take bits and pieces you like from different people. Try using what you can learn from them.

Some of these tips might seem like you are faking something. But fake it til you make it is a useful way to learn something new. And remember, feelings work backwards too. If you smile a bit more you will feel happier. If you sit up straight you will feel more energetic and in control. If you slow down your movements you’ll feel calmer. Your feelings will actually reinforce your new behaviours and feelings of weirdness will dissipate.

In the beginning easy it’s to exaggerate your body language. You might sit with your legs almost ridiculously far apart or sit up straight in a tense pose all the time. That’s ok. And people aren’t looking as much as you think, they are worrying about their own problems. Just play around a bit, practice and monitor yourself to find a comfortable balance.

1. Don’t cross your arms or legs – You have probably already heard you shouldn’t cross your arms as it might make you seem defensive or guarded. This goes for your legs too. Keep your arms and legs open.

2. Have eye contact, but don’t stare – If there are several people you are talking to, give them all some eye contact to create a better connection and see if they are listening. Keeping too much eye-contact might creep people out. Giving no eye-contact might make you seem insecure. If you are not used to keeping eye-contact it might feel a little hard or scary in the beginning but keep working on it and you’ll get used to it.

3. Don’t be afraid to take up some space – Taking up space by for example sitting or standing with your legs apart a bit signals self-confidence and that you are comfortable in your own skin.

4. Relax your shoulders – When you feel tense it’s easily winds up as tension in your shoulders. They might move up and forward a bit. Try to relax. Try to loosen up by shaking the shoulders a bit and move them back slightly.

5. Nod when they are talking – nod once in a while to signal that you are listening. But don’t overdo it and peck like Woody Woodpecker.

6. Don’t slouch, sit up straight – but in a relaxed way, not in a too tense manner.

7. Lean, but not too much – If you want to show that you are interested in what someone is saying, lean toward the person talking. If you want to show that you’re confident in yourself and relaxed lean back a bit. But don’t lean in too much or you might seem needy and desperate for some approval. Or lean back too much or you might seem arrogant and distant.

8. Smile and laugh – lighten up, don’t take yourself too seriously. Relax a bit, smile and laugh when someone says something funny. People will be a lot more inclined to listen to you if you seem to be a positive person. But don’t be the first to laugh at your own jokes, it makes you seem nervous and needy. Smile when you are introduced to someone but don’t keep a smile plastered on your face, you’ll seem insincere.

9. Don’t touch your face – it might make you seem nervous and can be distracting for the listeners or the people in the conversation.

10. Keep you head up – Don’t keep your eyes on the ground, it might make you seem insecure and a bit lost. Keep your head up straight and your eyes towards the horizon.

11. Slow down a bit – this goes for many things. Walking slower not only makes you seem more calm and confident, it will also make you feel less stressed. If someone addresses you, don’t snap you’re neck in their direction, turn it a bit more slowly instead.

12. Don’t fidget – try to avoid, phase out or transform fidgety movement and nervous ticks such as shaking your leg or tapping your fingers against the table rapidly. You’ll seem nervous and fidgeting can be a distracting when you try to get something across. Declutter your movements if you are all over the place. Try to relax, slow down and focus your movements.

13. Use your hands more confidently – instead of fidgeting with your hands and scratching your face use them to communicate what you are trying to say. Use your hands to describe something or to add weight to a point you are trying to make. But don’t use them to much or it might become distracting. And don’t let your hands flail around, use them with some control.

14. Lower your drink – don’t hold your drink in front of your chest. In fact, don’t hold anything in front of your heart as it will make you seem guarded and distant. Lower it and hold it beside your leg instead.

15. Realise where you spine ends – many people might sit or stand with a straight back in a good posture. However, they might think that the spine ends where the neck begins and therefore crane the neck forward in a Montgomery Burns pose.Your spine ends in the back of your head. Keep you whole spine straight and aligned for better posture.

16. Don’t stand too close –one of the things we learned from Seinfeld is that everybody gets weirded out by a close-talker. Let people have their personal space, don’t invade it.

17. Mirror – Often when you get along with a person, when the two of you get a good connection, you will start to mirror each other unconsciously. That means that you mirror the other person’s body language a bit. To make the connection better you can try a bit of proactive mirroring. If he leans forward, you might lean forward. If she holds her hands on her thighs, you might do the same. But don’t react instantly and don’t mirror every change in body language. Then weirdness will ensue.

18. Keep a good attitude – last but not least, keep a positive, open and relaxed attitude. How you feel will come through in your body language and can make a major difference.

You can change your body language but as all new habits it takes a while. Especially things like keeping you head up might take time to correct if you have spent thousands of days looking at your feet. And if you try and change to many things at once it might become confusing and feel overwhelming.

Take a couple of these body language bits to work on every day for three to four weeks. By then they should have developed into new habits and something you’ll do without even thinking about it. If not, keep on until it sticks. Then take another couple of things you’d like to change and work on them.

Check out of Business Communication Course to learn more about body language and communication skills.

Check out the following video for some tips for body language:

Ref: Article by Henrik Edberg “18 ways to improve your body language”, The Positivity Blog.

Studies by Stanford Research Institute and the Carnegie Mellon Foundation among Fortune 500 CEOs found that 75% of long term job success depended on people skills and only 25% on technical skills.

This is true at other levels as well. For effective performance in the workplace, companies need their employees to have not only domain knowledge, technical and analytical skills, but also the skills to deal with the external world of clients, customers, vendors, the government and public; and to work in a collaborative manner with their colleagues.

The annual rankings of MBA colleges often place communication and interpersonal skills as the most critical skills needed for success in the corporate world.

Noted academic Prof. Henry Mintzberg while speaking on the importance of soft skills for MBAs, refers to the crucial “soft” skills – leadership, teamwork, communication, and the ability to think “outside the box” of a discipline – that separate the best from the rest in the management world.”

Companies are finding that they have to promote people faster than ever before to meet their growth needs.  At the same time, they are finding that the candidates do not have the necessary skills to make the transition from a technical or functional specialist to a team leader, supervisor or manager.  Companies in the IT, BPO, KPO, Biotech, and Pharmaceuticals industries have found that their people need soft skills to work effectively in cross-functional or project teams, local teams or global teams.

Learn Skills, the web-based skills and compliance training company,  can offer a tailored soft-skills program to benefit companies and address these issues and you can contact us for further information by clicking here.

Soft skills refer to a very diverse range of abilities such as:

• Self-awareness
• Analytical thinking
• Leadership skills
• Team-building skills
• Flexibility
• Ability to communicate effectively
• Creativity
• Problem-solving skills
• Listening skills
• Diplomacy
• Change-readiness

Many people often refer to ‘soft skills’ as ‘people skills’ or ‘emotional intelligence’. Hard skills are the technical abilities required to do a job or perform a task: essentially they are acquired through training and education programs, like those offered by Learn Skills.

Importance of Soft Skills

According to psychologist Daniel Coleman, a combination of competencies that contribute to a person’s ability to manage his or herself and relate to other people-matters twice as much as IQ or technical skills in job success.

Results of a recent studies on the importance of soft skills indicated that the single most important soft skill for a job candidate to possess was interpersonal skills, followed by written or verbal communication skills and the ability to work under pressure.

A constantly changing work environment – due to technology, customer-driven markets, an knowledge-based economy and globalisation that are currently impacting on the structure of the workplace and leading to an increased reliance on, and demand for, soft skills.

Soft skills are not a replacement for hard- or technical-skills. They are, in many instances, complementary, and serve to unlock the potential for highly effective performance in people qualified with the requisite hard skills.

Learn Skills provides a comprehensive range of soft-skill courses for employees who want to enhance their work performance and improve their employability.

Reference: sitagita.com