Change Management Models: The Seven Steps Model

Change management can't be an overnight execution, not one week, even two weeks, because change managers would plan the change with multiple steps to accommodate people's emotional comfy for adopting something new. There are many suggestions on how to take action. Today, let's talk about the Seven-Steps Change Management Model, which includes understanding, enlisting, envisaging, motivating, communicating, acting, and consolidating seven change steps. 


The first three steps focus on aligning key stakeholders. Understanding means diagnosing the problem and knowing stakeholders' perspectives. Enlist means assessing the motivation and capacity for change in the system and listing the possible change actions. Envisage is to show stakeholders the vision and set clear goals.


 The remaining four steps are engaging the organization to implement the change. Motivating means assessing the resources and motivation of the change. Communicating is to communicate the change plan and strategies. Acting means taking actions to make the change. Consolidating means enforcing the change result and making it sustainable. 

When to use it: We find this model is helpful for the top-down approach in general. The time spent on each step might not be the same. It depends on various organizational situations. It follows a similar pattern as other change management models, focusing on people first before looking at execution.