Organizational change maturity is often discussed, and resources like the PowerPoint above help you evaluate your organization. But what does this mean for you?
If you’re the only change manager on a project or in the organization, influencing overall change maturity can feel impossible. Sometimes, it is.
Early in the change maturity journey or in siloed organizations, progress often feels painfully slow.
The best approach? Pick a battle you can win.
Here are three ways you can increase your change maturity, and ultimately help your organization do the same.
First, focus on improving your personal change maturity.
By auditing and overhauling your personal change toolkit and skills, you’ll be better equipped to face future challenges. Even when things are tough, you’ll have the satisfaction of reflecting on your own growth and achievements.
When you improve your skills and deliver better results, others notice. This can inspire colleagues and help build change maturity from the ground up.
To kick things off, audit your skills.
Change managers need many skills, but can’t master all of them. Some excel at leadership coaching; others are better at analytics or training delivery.
Do this
List key change delivery skills, then honestly assess your proficiency in each.
Evaluate and prioritize your skills
As you assess each skill, decide if it’s worth developing further or if you should rely on a colleague or outsource. For example, if training videos aren’t your strength, recommend outsourcing or consider upskilling.
No one can master every skill. Prioritize those that match your career goals.
By focusing on specific skills, you can become the go-to change manager for those capabilities. This elevates both your career and the organization’s change maturity.
Your Non-negotiables
Carving your niche is useful, but some capabilities are essential to change management maturity.
1. Foundational knowledge of change methodologies
Deep understanding of change methodologies is fundamental. Relying on just one isn’t enough. As a change specialist, be familiar with multiple frameworks, such as ADKAR, SCARF, and Kotter, so you can tailor your approach. Knowledge of older models, such as the Kübler-Ross change curve and the McKinsey 70% myth, also enables informed stakeholder discussions.
2. A framework artefact
Whether you use PowerPoint, Excel, or Google Docs, clearly define your deliverables and their order. Organizations with low change maturity expect you to lead, not reinvent the wheel. Bring templates for impact assessments, benefit realization, communications, and change planning. If these artefacts are missing or insufficient, develop a repeatable framework that shows you understand the change roadmap and can deliver consistent results.
3. Demonstrate the value you bring
In low change maturity organizations, change managers often must justify their role and value, spending significant time explaining the importance of change management.
Key takeaway: Make your value visible. Set measurable goals, track your results, and communicate how change management contributes to ROI. This clarifies your impact and builds support for your role.
A previous webinar discussed the importance of “speaking project”: communicating in terms familiar to project stakeholders. This ensures the value of change management is clear to the organiation. Watch the webinar for more insights.
In our next newsletter, we’ll share three more tips on how you can elevate the change maturity in your project.
Ready to see where you really stand?
Understanding change maturity in theory is one thing—seeing how it shows up in your day-to-day work is another. To help you move from reflection to action, we’ve created a short change maturity assessment quiz. It’s designed for change managers working in complex, low-maturity environments and helps you quickly identify where your current strengths lie, where the gaps are, and what to focus on next. Whether you’re operating solo or within a small change function, the assessment gives you a practical starting point for building change maturity—one achievable step at a time.
