Successfully managing change is an essential element of day-to-day business. No one likes to feel forced to adjust their goals, processes, or technology. This is where change management shines as it helps organizations navigate the intricacies and nuances of transitions.

Netflix, Coca-Cola, British Airways… These companies succeeded at managing change, and now they’re some of the biggest corporations in the world. By comparison, organizations that failed at change, such as Blockbuster, Kodak, and BlackBerry, lost their market dominance and fell by the wayside to the point of bankruptcy (and in some cases, they do go bankrupt). 

The moral of these stories is to never underestimate the importance of change. 

As the world increasingly moves forward into the digital age, the speed of business has accelerated right alongside. However, since business transactions are governed by contracts and other legal documents, businesses can only go as far and as fast as the legal team supporting them.

That’s why legal teams must start thinking about changing their own ways. In 2023, it’s no longer good enough to simply be the company’s protector. Nowadays, slow and steady will never win the race.

Legal departments are now expected to become an active and strategic business partner. The sooner and quicker Legal begins to plan out its transformation, the better positioned it will be to enable lucrative business deals. 

With The Corporate Legal Team’s Guide to Change Management in hand, you’ll have a guide that you can always turn to at any stage of the change process. It will help you make sure you get started on the right foot, and it will be there as a resource if you need inspiration for how to navigate uncertainty or technology implementation.

Change is not a simple process, regardless of who you are or how much experience you have. It requires careful planning and consideration, as well as a vision of what’s in store in the future.

But while change can be daunting and difficult, it doesn’t need to be. Change can be managed by following a clear, pre-determined plan of action. Use The Corporate Legal Team’s Guide to Change Management to walk you through what you need to do. Our guide breaks down change management into five distinct stages:

● Gearing up - What groundwork needs to be laid before you can start the change process?

● Mobilizing and galvanizing - How can you motivate people to buy in and commit to the changes planned?

● Making change happen - How can you guide your organization through change?

● Ensuring change management success - What can you do to increase the chances that your organization succeeds at changing?

● Final considerations - How can you assess the impact of changes made, as well as technology that can enable change?

It might seem like a lot, but countless successful leaders and managers have proven capable of achieving organizational change. By leveraging change management, they are able to systematically plan, execute, and implement the implementation of organizational evolutions by honestly asking and answering the necessary questions.

Change is inevitable. There’s no possible way to run a business without encountering times when change is needed. And as we mentioned before, ignoring change runs the risk of putting your organization in jeopardy, which is why you should have someone or something to turn to when times get tough.

Ready to get started? While change management can be difficult, our change management master checklist for corporate legal teams will enable you to confidently step up to the challenge and transform change from a fear into a strength. With it in hand, the apprehension of yesterday will become the excitement of tomorrow.

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For more information about how in-house legal teams lead change within their departments, download our free guide, The Corporate Legal Team’s Guide to Change Management: Your Master Checklist.

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Some of this content was previously published on the ContractWorks blog