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8 Steps to Leading People Successfully through Major Change

manage change

Change in business is almost always a good thing, but often poor management means that the workforce becomes disengaged and the change process painful. In the worst cases, this results in irreparable damage being done.

It doesn’t need to be this way. Follow these eight steps and empower yourself to successfully lead your people through major organizational change.

A Clear Plan

In order to successfully implement change within an organization, it is crucial to create a clear plan. Without a plan in place, the change process can become chaotic, unorganized, and ultimately fail. A clear plan helps to outline the goals, steps, and resources needed to achieve the desired outcome.

One of the key benefits of having a clear plan is that it helps to identify potential roadblocks or challenges that may arise during the change process. This allows for proactive measures to be put in place to address these challenges, which can help to minimize their impact on the overall success of the change initiative.

Additionally, a clear plan can help to ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page and working towards the same goals. This helps to avoid confusion, miscommunication, and misunderstandings that can arise when there is no clear direction or plan in place.

Creating a clear plan also helps to provide a sense of structure and organization to the change process. This can help to alleviate anxiety and uncertainty that employees may feel during times of change, as they can see the steps and timeline for the change initiative.

Understand the change

Make sure you understand exactly what is changing and how it affects your people. Speak to whomever you need to in order to ascertain this properly. You need to know what the impact is on your people and the jobs they do. Educating yourself will mean you’re better equipped to communicate with your staff. It will give them confidence that you are the right person to lead them into the unknown. It will also relieve their anxieties, as they will feel able to put their trust in you to keep them informed and look after their individual and collective interests.

Communicate effectively

Regular and varied communication is essential in managing change. Initial briefings to employees should be face to face, with adequate time set aside to prepare beforehand.

They should be delivered by an appropriately senior manager who also has good presentation skills and a natural delivery style. The audience needs to be engaged, not alienated. Going forward, set up a recognized channel that will control the flow of information on daily developments.

This could be an online micro-site or a newsletter or bulletin. Make sure the tone and language is upbeat and that the positive messages the business wants to promote about the change are a recurring theme. You should consult with your marketing team for advice on how to do this effectively.

Consult with your people

Consult staff on their views and provide clear channels for those opinions to be received. Consider providing an email address to receive questions, or if you have set up a micro-site, set up a message board that allows for questions and answers to be posted online.

It is equally important to ensure you are responding swiftly to those questions. It’s a good idea to set up and publish an FAQ list, which will prevent having to answer the same question multiple times. This will also help inform the content of future communications through understanding the hot topics.

Ultimately, the change may be mandatory and not open to amendment, but even if this were true, communication must still be a two-way street. If you don’t demonstrate an active interest in employees’ views, then you risk an outright mutiny.

Use your champions

Identify the characters in your team that are positive about the change, and pick out one or two who are popular or hold sway over their teammates. These are your wingmen, and it’s important you tap into that resource early. Get them on your side and meet with them regularly. Explain the important role they have to play in helping others to stay upbeat.

As well as being a supportive and positive voice amongst the people, they are also your eyes and ears, in a position of trust with colleagues. This means they will pick up on potential concerns or flashpoints early, and be able to bring these to your attention in confidence.

During any staff briefings, your champions will play a pivotal role in supporting managers; positive voices from the populace are invaluable.

Control the dissenters

The negative voices in your team are often the loudest and most influential. You will have a number of people in your team who are confused or undecided about how they feel about the change. They are susceptible to being convinced by the detractors in your team, who will attempt to rally them to their cause. If all those sitting on the fence jump off on the wrong side, your life will get difficult. Don’t let that happen.

Target those dissenting staff members and speak to them individually. Show empathy and understanding for their concerns but explain the impact on their colleagues of their open expressions of negativity. Try to get them involved in meetings, taking an active role in being a critical but objective voice. But ultimately, if their views are extreme and it’s clear they intend to persist in being a disruptive influence, then take a hard line. Tell them their behavior is not acceptable and could lead to disciplinary action on grounds of their conduct.

Maintain the business

Don’t let your team lose focus on their day-to-day responsibilities and the running of the business. It’s inevitable that there will be some impact on productivity during major change, but there is a limit to this, and staff needs to be reminded that their normal roles and responsibilities still remain. Plan briefings and communications to minimize the impact on your resources, and by extension, your customers.

Toe the line

A lack of professionalism and objectivity of managers can spell disaster. Even if you feel that the business change is fundamentally wrong, or have concerns with the judgment of your seniors, you must not reveal this. You need to maintain the party line and express the changes in positive, objective terms.

Discuss your concerns with others you trust in the business if you need a sounding board, but be very careful who you confide in. Ideally, use confidential, independent channels, such as an employee assistance helpline, if your business provides one.

Manage outside influences

The change may attract outside attention from the local or national press or pressure groups. This might happen if your organization is particularly large, in the public sector, or in a regulated or contentious industry. In these cases, you also need to be aware of the effect these outside agencies’ activities may have on your employees. You can rarely exercise much control over external media, but you can make sure your finger is on the pulse. This will allow you to react quickly if an external event occurs that’s likely to cause disruption or concern.

Train Your Employees

Providing training to employees is a crucial step in managing change within an organization. It equips employees with the necessary skills to adapt to new situations and implement new processes effectively.

Training should be provided in a structured and comprehensive manner, covering not only the technical aspects of the change but also the behavioral and emotional aspects. Employees should be made aware of the reasons for the change, the benefits it will bring, and how it will impact their roles and responsibilities.

Interactive training sessions that allow employees to ask questions and share their concerns should be conducted. This will create a sense of involvement and ownership among employees, making them more receptive to the change.

Furthermore, training should be ongoing and provided at regular intervals to ensure that employees are up-to-date with the latest skills and techniques. This will enable them to continuously improve and adapt to the changing business environment.

Celebrate Small Successes

When a company is going through a change process, it can be easy for employees to become overwhelmed or demotivated. However, by celebrating small successes along the way, companies can keep their employees motivated and engaged throughout the entire process.

It’s important to acknowledge that change can be difficult, and there will inevitably be bumps in the road. But by celebrating small successes, employees can see that progress is being made, and that their hard work is paying off. This can help to boost morale and keep everyone focused on the end goal.

Celebrating small successes can also help to build momentum. By recognizing and celebrating each step forward, employees are encouraged to keep pushing forward, and the entire process becomes less daunting. This can lead to faster and more successful implementation of the change.

There are many ways to celebrate small successes throughout the change process. It can be as simple as acknowledging a job well done in a team meeting, or giving employees a small token of appreciation, like a gift card or a company-branded item. The key is to show employees that their efforts are valued and appreciated.

Change doesn’t have to be stressful and unpredictable, providing you plan ahead and stay in control. The key to success is keeping your employees bought into the objectives, and engaged with the mechanics of the change. Following these nine steps will ensure you do that, and allow you to successfully lead people, unscathed, through even the most major organizational change.

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