Alison Craig on successfully leading and managing change in this month’s Leadership Matters

It is widely reported that 70% of change efforts fail, yet many businesses believe they handle change well. Would their teams agree?

Change is an inevitable part of business and life. Many things continually change around us so, if we stand still, we fall behind. For our organisations to stay relevant and efficient, we must initiate, lead, and manage change effectively.

What makes it difficult

Whether it is large scale transformational change or smaller changes that contribute to continuous improvement, change can be tricky to manage. One of the biggest challenges is that each of your team can respond differently to the same change situation, and people’s reactions can be unexpected. We can fail to recognise the amount of change or challenge going on for a person and this latest shift becomes the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’. As a leader, you often know about the proposed change for longer, or decided it was a great idea yourself. Therefore, you are further through the stages of change and may even be on to the next thing.

Top 5 Tips

Here are our top tips for leading and managing change successfully:

1. Paint a clear and compelling vision of where you are trying to get to and why

• Share as much information as you can, tailored to your audience and people’s personality preferences
• Describe when you will come back with more detail and make sure you stick to that deadline, even if there is nothing new to say
• Outline the planned benefits for the people involved, wider team, organisation, clients, etc.
• Sometimes the reason for change is that there is too much risk attached to carrying on as you are, be transparent about that

2. Be fully present and listen to individual’s reactions, ideas, and concerns

• Don’t try to outweigh worries or negativity with over-zealous positivity
• Demonstrate empathy by putting yourself in their shoes and seeing the world through their eyes, the change may be no big deal to you but for some reason it is to them
• Use coaching skills to get underneath what’s really going on for them and to help them work out how to get comfortable with the change and move forward
• Be clear on what parts of the change are non-negotiable and where ideas are welcome

3. Acknowledge loss, frustrations, and obstacles

• Don’t pretend that everything will be straight forward and easy
• Recognise that change may mean people letting go of parts of their job, or processes, that they enjoyed and were experts in. You are asking them to start again and, even if you believe it to be a better way of doing things, this can diminish confidence and result in past work/ achievements feeling undervalued

4. Harness optimism

• Identify ‘change agents’ in your team (Kurt Lewin) who can support and encourage others who are finding the change more difficult
• As more people get on board with the changes, recognise their progress and achievements
• Notice those who are becoming isolated and use coaching to support them again in finding ways forward. Create a sense of urgency, without generating fear, to prevent them from falling too far behind
• Set milestones for the duration of a substantial change project, so it doesn’t feel too huge to tackle
• Create a ‘safety net’ for people as they give new things a go, so they can learn and experiment without fear

5. Make the change stick

• Throughout the whole change process, keep reiterating what you are all trying to achieve and why
• Share progress and success stories to illuminate the benefits already secured and those yet to come
• Recognise everyone’s efforts in making the change work and help them identify the skills and behaviours they have developed in the process. This will help their confidence and resilience for the next time you want to introduce change
• Acknowledge once again any loss experienced and mark and honour endings
• Get feedback on what is and is not working. Overcome obstacles to avoid people reverting to their old ways of working

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For more leadership tips, read through our past Leadership Matters articles on Hampshire Biz News. And as always, if you would like to bounce any ideas or undertake coaching, mentoring, or training with our team of leadership and employee engagement experts, please get in touch.

• alisoncraigcoaching.co.uk