When you need to lead major change: 5 top actions for leaders
We've talked about handling change on a personal level and how you can help your teams navigate change. What can leaders do to drive change at an organizational level? The secret here is that all change is personal. Organizations cannot truly change or transform unless people do.
OCM, or Organizational Change Management, has received a lot of attention in the last decade. I make part of my living by leading and executing these strategies to help with re-organizations, system implementations, process changes, mergers/acquisitions, and cultural transformation.
Leading changes of this magnitude have many legs to them and how leaders show up, communicate, listen, and execute are critical to ensure transitions are accepted and embraced.
Many leaders have asked me during my career why they need to focus on change management. Why not just make the inevitable changes and tell everyone to accept them and move on? That certainly is an approach. It is an approach that happens all the time. "We are shifting in this direction. We are making staffing cuts. We are being acquired. We are dumping our enterprise system you all have been using for 15 years and moving to something else. Any questions?"
Most of the time, people can't steer the direction of some of these major decisions, but they can help with how you roll them out, how you communicate them, and how they are trained and supported to embrace the change. The reason for focusing on these activities is to help people feel heard, minimize time spent on resistance, and maximize time spent on making the change real.
This is not a warm and fuzzy concept, although the point is to make feel better and more connected to the change but make no mistake that focusing on helping people embrace change has a hard and soft dollar return as well.
Whether you are a leader or a professional who wants to help with major organizational changes, here are my top 5 actions to take. As with most topics, there are many things we can do to help organizations shift. But, if you do nothing else, think about the five actions below.
Have a plan.
Whether you hire someone like me or ask someone internally to help, get support in putting a plan together. What does this look like? It all starts with who...who is going to be impacted, how much, and how do they feel about the change? This is essential to inform the two other major parts of a plan -- training and communication. Some people will need more attention than others because they are steeply impacted and may not be wild about the change. Training of new processes, policies, and skills should be a part of the plan as should communications. For those impacted the most, frequent, tight communications (not just emails!) will be needed to help people understand the who, what, where, why, and how of the change. Weekly stand-ups, live with a leader or manager may be required. If roles are changing as a result, then personal attention to each individual will need to be a part of the plan. Maybe rewards and performance measures need to change as well. The main point about large-scale change is there are usually many tentacles that need to be considered so spend time identifying all the arms of the octopus. One of the trickiest parts is to ensure you identify and interview all stakeholders. I always find there are more stakeholders than you think at first blush.
Be visible.
If you are in a leadership position -- doesn't matter what your title is -- you need to be visible and accessible during a significant change. I have known too many leaders who sent a "memo" or said something vague during a town hall and then were never heard from again. Leaders need to help with communications regularly. I am not suggesting that the CEO take meetings with 100,000 employees, but I do think leaders need to do more than speak about a significant change once. They should provide updates in the form of emails, videos, and live points during monthly meetings (or even more frequently depending on the change). Communications need to increase during significant change, and leaders at all levels need to be those messengers. People like to hear from the CEO, but they like to hear from their Department Head or Group Head even more.
Get people involved.
People support what they create. Depending on the change, people may not be able to involve a lot, but I encourage leaders to find ways people can be involved. Stand up a team to help figure out how to integrate a new system or take on new responsibilities instead of shouldering that as a leader yourself. This is where you can get creative. There are many roles people can play during a change. Brainstorm those with your team and get people onto cross-functional teams to help. People can help with reimagining processes, training, job aids, quick tips creation, communication, rewards and recognition, and even planning time for fun (amid heavy change, it is nice to take a break and have a little fun!). Getting teams involved in some aspect goes a long way to helping people embrace the change.
Sharpen your listening skills.
A big part of leader communication is listening. I have seen the most effective change strategies work when leaders either do listening tours or provide their employees with a way to share their feedback on an ongoing basis. Listening should occur before, during, and after change since changes have a lifecycle, and resistance and engagement ebb and flow. This is where getting others involved can also help. If you appoint champions embedded with certain groups, they can be designated to listen and collect feedback regularly and summarize and share with senior leaders. Listening for the sake of listening does matter in times of change even if you can't act on any of the feedback you receive. People need to feel and be heard. Of course, if you can make adjustments based on feedback, that is even better.
Activate your managers.
We talked last week about what managers can do to help their teams. Managers are the most critical people in times of change. The first thing you should do is define and clarify their role in the change. Some managers may not think they have a role to play, but they certainly do! Be sure to include people managers in your communication plans and have special training, communications, and attention for managers. Equipping them with the right information promptly can have a huge impact. Empowering them to help drive the change with their teams is also effective. Even training them in how to manage conflict, deal with resistance, and motivate their teams will also help support them in managing change.
There are many reasons the discipline of change management has arisen as a critical function and focus. Some large changes may be outside of our control. However, there are many things we can do as leaders and professionals to ensure the change is understood, accepted, embraced, and actively integrated into what we do no matter what the change is.
Spend a little time upfront to define those impacted and how they would feel about the change along with planning and being intentional about training, communications, small-group huddles, rewards, and performance. Having a plan for incorporating the change into daily life will also minimize resistance. Finally, above all, change is personal so be sure to involve others to help solve problems and challenges alongside you. They will be more supportive if they helped create the plan and solution.