Throughout my career — as being a chief financial officer in companies small and big, as being a corporate and nonprofit board member, and now as CEO of an fast-growing privately owned startup — I’ve learned to become a change agent. It’s a badge I wear proudly, and something containing trained me in in what works and just what doesn’t when managing change.
Every change initiative is unique, but the truths about producing change succeed are, generally, exactly the same. Here I’ve collected 10 truths about change management. Consider them like tools within a toolbox — you must have them nearby, you must know using them and you should determine the proper time to pull them out and set results. That’s the change agent’s responsibilities.
1. Change is approximately people.
I lead a computer software company that delivers a game-changing connected planning platform. Although I have faith that technology will help our organizations grow, evolve and improve, change management is ultimately about people. As leaders, we need to set the example of the change we want from your people around us. Because great NBA coach Phil Jackson said, “You can’t force your will on people. If you’d like these phones act differently, you need to inspire these phones change themselves.” Only if you help individuals change can you wish to change a business.
Related: 5 Principles for coping with Constant Change
2. Take the time.
Some changes are quick, but real, transformational change can — and sometimes must — take years. We’re all amazed with how quick things alternation in Silicon Valley, as well as the power to react fast can be important survival. But, changing hearts, minds and finally culture (see No. 1) often can’t be done together with the snap of one’s fingers.
3. Develop a vision.
Stake out that you want a transformation to adopt you at the start of Kogan Page Change Management Books. Know what success looks like. That doesn’t mean every item has to be fully baked from Day One. In reality, avoid doing that — since it means you haven’t engaged the people who you need fully briefed with you. And don’t be rigid, because that could obstruct of success. (More about that within a bit.)
Related: 5 Ways CEOs Can Empower Teams to build up Collaborative Workplaces
4. Engage your stakeholders.
That is central to selling the vision you established. Get the individuals who will be suffering from the change, and obtain them involved and purchased the project and its success.
5. Acknowledge tradeoffs.
When folks are inspired to change, be familiar with the end results. Think it is like pulling the loose thread on the shirt — it often may cause a button to go away. Should you add resources — dollars, people, space or another type — to at least one project, attempt to determine what normally takes a back seat. And time may be the ultimate finite resource, if you decide to ask a superstar who’s already working at chance to do something extra, realize that her productivity in her “day job” may need to be shifted.
6. Use the willing.
Not everyone in your organization will probably get on board the change train. That’s natural; a lot of people may have methods for thinking and working which can be incompatible with what you need to accomplish. So, while it’s possibly the least fun a part of change management, sometimes you need to generate new individuals who share your eyesight, and release individuals who don’t. I don’t have to let you know that staff changes are very pricey, but the costs of misalignment and wasted time on resisters are very much greater.
7. Overcommunicate — and after that communicate a lot more.
I’ve used every medium you can imagine to communicate about change. Town halls, emails, newsletters, intranet sites, videoconferencing, collaboration tools — every one has a spot. In some cases, it’s appropriate to talk about internal change with individuals away from your organization, maybe even most people. For example, while we were transforming Cisco’s finance department from your number-crunching machine right into a strategic business partner, we published a Q&A from the Wall Street Journal about the project. People active in the effort shared the piece around, and took greater pride from the work — and several people we hadn’t been able to reach by other methods finally understood what we were looking to do.
8. Listen.
The communication I recently described can’t certainly be a one-way street. You need to hear individuals who are making the change, and hear individuals suffering from the change. That doesn’t mean you value all feedback equally, or supply the people who are complaining additional time. But look hard for the useful nuggets in what people let you know, and plow it well into the plans. In a way, this is actually the extended sort of engaging your stakeholders (No. 4).
9. Empower the silent majority to speak up.
If you listen (No. 8), you’re prone to hear several voices the loudest. Be aware that they’re not always speaking for almost all people. So, supply the silent majority several ways to make their voices heard: Anonymous polls and surveys will help, but sometimes you need to train and persuade folks to speak up. I recall one situation by which someone posted a very negative, scathing comment about a project really public forum. As an alternative to engage within this public platform, a nice but valued part of my team emailed him directly and extremely respectfully invited him to chat — one-on-one, directly — about his concerns and helped work on a fix. He immediately backed down, and my team member then asked him to adopt back his discuss exactly the same public forum. He did.
Related: Why Problem Solvers, Not Whiner, Always Win operational
10. Learn along the way.
Challenges will arise as organizations change; the success or failure of one’s change management effort depends on how we respond to those challenges. For example, because finance team at Cisco became strategic business advisors (as an alternative to simply back office human calculators — see No. 7), a lot of people found themselves in unfamiliar territory. These folks were brilliant accountants, but had gaps within their business knowledge. We addressed this by creating new learning opportunities and career development paths for individuals in finance. Precisely the same is possible in almost any part of your business.
When i noted earlier, each and every these truths apply to every situation. And admittedly, none of these things is especially novel, however that doesn’t mean they’re not easy to overlook. The company landscape is suffering from change management projects that failed for reasons which can be, in retrospect, painfully obvious.
But, these truths is nuanced, and success lies in their application. The wisdom of change management would be to know which tool to utilize, when in working order. And that’s where leadership is available in.
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