Leading change is hard. Not only are organizations in constant need of change but, there are always a ton of things going on that slow change down. Overworked employees, lack of empowerment, trust, complacency and more drag down and kill change plans on a daily basis. Over the next several weeks, we’ll walk through a strong change strategy for you and the team/company to implement change successfully no matter how large or small the organization is.
Examine the market and current reality
A change plan, communications, flashy logos, and supporting material will fall flat if there is no urgency in the change. The biggest enemy of urgency, is, of course, complacency. You may have seen new stories of organizations folding after years of service, or perhaps you’ve experienced it firsthand in a company or even in groups that you volunteer and serve with. How do the leaders not get it? The surface answer may be that they are dumb and should be replaced. That answer is action but it doesn’t address the root issue. The leaders probably aren’t idiots and are instead just complacent in their roles and the company’s past success. Here are some sources that cause complacency in the organization:
- No major or visible crisis (Things feel great)
- Low standards of what they expect from associates (No push for greatness & innovation)
- Siloed organizations (I take care of my assigned space only)
- Measureables on the wrong metrics (I’m measured on if I launched a project, not if it was successful)
- Little to no tolerance for a varying opinion (A diverse view is not welcomed)
- Denial due to stress (I can’t deal with this right now)
- Too much positivity and no desire to discuss the real situation (Things have to feel great)
Raise the urgency level
In order to increase urgency, you have to remove the sources of complacency or at a minimum lessen their influence and impact. Some leaders may push a sense of urgency up a degree or two but often fail to push it far enough. It can be tough, especially if that leader has been in their role for a long time. It can feel like they are admitting to others that they were wrong in their leadership or that they will be blamed for creating all the issues and urgency that they need to highlight. It’s not a coincidence that you will often see a good amount of change after a new leader is put into a key role. They don’t have the baggage and history in the role to hold them back. Whether you are well-established or brand-new, here are some ways to elevate urgency:
- Raise the standard (revenue, productivity, customer satisfaction, etc) so high that they can’t be met by doing things the way that they’ve always been done.
- Be more transparent in customer reviews, sharing them openly with your team, especially the negative and critical ones. Don’t fight back or defend against negative reviews.
- Have an individual’s measured success account for the larger organization’s success and not just their own narrow contribution.
- Communicate about future opportunities and future state (and the wonderful rewards that follow) and the inability to pursue and reach those opportunities under the current state.
- Have associates talk to unhappy customers and stakeholders.
- Share stories of competitors’ success as they innovate.
- Pull-up urgency that’s raised at the bottom of the business from middle managers and front-line associates.
Sometimes you don’t have to create urgency because it’s already there in the form of a crisis. The team should always call the crisis for what it is instead of putting effort into either ignoring or sweeping the topic underneath the rug.
Discuss crises, potential crises, and major opportunities
No matter how the crisis comes about, it’s important for everyone to feel it in order to move forward in the change. Many times teams will skip this step, and begin immediately implementing fairly monumental change like laying off staff and cutting costs, but unless you’ve laid a solid foundation of “Why” and urgency, complacency will always creep itself back in.
A very high number of leaders need to genuinely believe and feel a sense of urgency around the change. That number very well could exceed 75% depending on the level of change on the team and in the org. Dig in with your leaders to affirm that they know how urgent this need is. Surface-level questions like, “Scott you know this is urgent right?” won’t cut it here. You can also leverage outside data and stakeholders to help emphasize your story.
Put together a group with enough power to lead the change
As soon as you cross the hurdle of helping understand the urgency, you arrive at your second hurdle – creating a strong coalition of leaders with enough power to lead the change. Without the right mix of leadership and management people and experience, the change will likely not make it to completion successfully. Here are four areas to consider as you build this team.
Positional Power – We talked before about relational leadership being more important than positional, but you do need positional leadership representation to make the change work. Including representation from all layers of leadership ensures that no one is left out and becomes a blocker of progress.
Expertise – Is your team diverse enough to represent the background of your team and customer? Gender and cultural mix is important so that your strategy and solution don’t have gaps in it.
Credibility – Does the group have a good amount of great working relationships with others to be taken seriously as they work to make the change?
Leadership – Does the group have enough proven leaders to give credibility to the change with others?
The mix of leadership and management is very important in this group. Management keeps the process on track and moving forward. Leadership drives the change with the people and teams. Go too far one way or the other and things will fall apart. Too much management leads lead to plans and processes with no vision. It will miss the mark, under-communicating along the way, and will instead look to control the change rather than lead it. Too much leadership misses the sponsorship of the change and can result in backsliding later in the process.
Getting the group together to work like a team
As you get the team together, there are two important items that you want to care for – Trust and a common goal. The team needs to bond together, knowing that they are safe to share their thoughts and feelings on a change and that ideas, no matter how wild they are, will be listened to. Team building exercises, off-site events, and continuous get-to-know-you activities will help build that bond.
One reason that change doesn’t take hold is silos where departments don’t trust the others and feel like they need to look out for their best interest first. Build trust to knock those walls down.
A shared or common goal might be one wrapped around excellence. People on the team likely have a high desire to see the group succeed and perform at the highest level. Use that thought to help pull the team towards a shared vision for the future.
With a leading coalition of management and leaders who have built a healthy amount of trust with each other and share a common goal along with a strong sense of urgency will help lift the need for change off of the ground and begin the process of the change journey for the team.
Make a better tomorrow.
-ZH
