How Do You Implement Change from Bottom-Up?

Making change happen is challenging on its own, let alone trying to accomplish it from the bottom-up. Bottom-up change management is not easy but if done right, employee acceptance and retention is greater.

What are some of the key differences in the two methods?

Change from top-down:

• Has leadership support
• More likely to have significant resource support
• Limited overt resistance (maybe lots of passive resistance)
• Can be quickly implemented
• Useful in significant and urgent organizational changes, for example, if competition is going to run you out of business
• Effect is on enterprise-level changes trickling down to operational level processes

Change from bottom-up:  

• No executive level support or involvement
• Requires lots of selling and promotion
• Less likely to have significant resource support, you do what you can
• Lots of questions on why we are doing it and whey we are NOT doing it as an organization
• Can take more time
• Focus is on smaller, controllable processes, subcomponents to the entire organization
• Sometimes the only way to bring key changes to an organization
• Acceptance is greater with an inclusive, slower paced, employee-based approach

If managers are committed to their organizations and teams, they will attempt to improve what they see as being ineffective. That means they will initiate change at their local level even if executive-level support is not yet there. In the meantime, theses managers will promote, educate and persuade others to join in the change process. Managers of these initiatives focus on the sphere of influence and control that is directly under them. By developing their own staff and processes, they make their units more effective and efficient. With time, higher level managers will notice the changes and upstream and downstream colleagues will begin to implement at least some, if not all, of the changes that make sense for them. 

The bottom line is to do what you can under your own umbrella and approach others with simple but necessary touch-point changes so that they do not feed you poor quality. With a long-term commitment in mind, solid changes made at your local level will consume others in the organization and start to become more global.