2. YOU CAN’T DO IT ALONE
YOU HAVE TO GET YOUR
TEAM INVOLVED.
Is your vision
clear?
Listen to the
concerns of your
team.
Are you leading
by example,
walking the talk?
Identified
obstacles?
Strategize and put
on your game
face!
3. PLANNING & IMPLEMENTATION:
Change begins with you.
Benefits to the company.
Benefits to the employees.
WIIFM?
What’s the plan?
How will we succeed?
What are the expectations?
4. KEEP THE CHANGE: MAKING CHANGE STICK.
Is it working? If not, why not?
6. CONTENT & PROCESS = SUCCESS
“Effective change involves
Both content –what is being changed—
And process – how the changes are
Being implemented”
Unfreeze
Move
Refreeze
7. STAYING IN BALANCE
Catalyze Change & Cope w/Transition
Urgency & Have Realistic Patience
Be Tough & Empathetic
Show Optimism & Be Realistic/open.
Be Self-Reliant & Trust Others
Capitalize on Strength &
Go against the grain
9. REFERENCES
O’Brien, Michael J. (September 2008). Leadership And Management. 5
approaches to leading successful organizational change. Healthcare financial
management.
Higgs, Malcolm & Rowland, Deborah. (June 2005). Journal of Change
Management. Vol. 5, No. 2, 121-151. All Changes Great and Small: Exploring
Approaches to Change and its leadership.
Cicmil, Svetlana. (1999). Strategic Change. Strat. Change, 8, 119-129.
Implementing Organizational change projects: impediments and gaps.
Kotter, John P. (1995). The Tests Of A Leader. Best of Harvard Business
Review. Leading Change Why Transformation Efforts Fail.
Smith, Douglas K. (1996). Leader to Leader. Executive Forum. Making
Change Stick.
Neves, Pedro & Caetano, Antonio. (2006). Journal of Change
Management Vol. 6, No. 4, 351-364. Social Exchange Processes in Organizational
Change: The Roles of Trust and Control.
Bunkner, Kerry A. & Wakefield, Michael. (2008) An Update Classic by
Harvard Business School Publishing Coorporation. The Balance Needed to Lead
Change.
McBain, Richard. (Spring 2006). Henley Manager Update. Vol. 17 No. 3.
Why do change efforts so often fail?
Spector, Bert (2010). Implementing Organizational Change Theory Into
Practice. 2nd ed. Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 07458.
Editor's Notes
“Although the growing need for change in organizations [] is widely acknowledged it is asserted that up to 70% of change initiatives fail. While there have been attempts to understand the reasons for failure these have been seen as inconclusive, and a need for further empirical work has been identified. Within the growing literature on change leadership there are assertions that the root cause of many change problems is leadership behavior (Higgs & Rowland, p1 para 1).” As a leader it is your job to argue the case for change. Present evidence and reasons why the changes are necessary and clearly outline why change is vitally important to the success of the company. It is then your job as the leader to identify who the change effects, what the proposed changes will include, what the differences will be as a result of the change, what the action plan is moving forward, and what everyone’s role will be from this point on. Once the leader has uncovered what changes are necessary and carefully strategized an action plan that is both meaningful and attainable to successfully implement the change, it is time to clearly articulate your vision to the rest of the company. Leaders will do well to include supervisors and managers during the strategizing steps, this will help identify any lack of competencies or skills, that may hinder the change process. Supervisors and managers will help the leader identify what may interfere in the change process from the employees and staffing perspectives, as they typically have more interactions on a day to day basis with the employees and staff that ultimately the change will be dependent upon. It is important to listen to the concerns of your team and consider and decide on ways to overcome obstacles that may impede change success. Once you’ve worked together and you and your team have strategized a change strategy it’s time to put on your game face and put your plan into action. Don’t forget to walk the talk. It is extremely important for leaders to be 100% behind the change plan as all eyes will be on you, so it is your job to live, eat, breathe, and cheerlead your team everyday, all the time.
“Successful organizational change takes place when employees have a purpose, a plan for, and a part to play in that change (Neves & Caetano, p2 para 3).” After meeting with your team of supervisors and managers and coming up with a successful change strategy, it is now time to get the staff involved. Employees will make or break your change efforts so it is critical to make it just as important to them as it is to you. Leaders can do this by outlining the benefits to the company, why do we need to make these changes? Is it going to save jobs, is it to increase our competitive advantage in the market? Is our technology or process out of date? Are we losing customers causing our percentage of our market segment to shrink? Is the way we currently operate our business a sustainable business model? Why or why not? When we outline this important information to our team we are conveying the message that this is important information that they need to know. Not only does it affect the company but it will also affect their jobs and ultimately their livelihood and ability to maintain their current way of life. What are the benefits to the employees? Will they learn new skills, will they have increased job security? Will this increase their livelihood in terms of pay, longevity, upward mobility in the company, options for time off or vacation pay? Employees will need to know every aspect of how the change implementation will impact them, including their personal life. If extended work hours will now be available for example, this needs to be communicated up front to help increase employee buy-in, otherwise if you divulge this information at a later date it may be viewed as secretive or devious, which would have an end result of less buy-in and increased resistance. Be prepared to have all your cards on the table during this time. If seeing this change process come to a successful and sustainable completion is important to you, as the leader, you will need to invest the time and effort into “selling” it to your employees. Now that you have outlined the need for the change and how it will benefit the company and employees, it is time to unveil your plan. Be sure to emphasize how and why success is imminent, which is all hinged on you, as the leader, setting the right expectations. Never skip or skim over any steps that may be perceived as less than popular by the employees in an attempt to keep buy-in and morale high. There is nothing worse than agreeing to something and then having that nasty feeling in the bottom of your gut that you’ve been bamboozled or cheated by someone who needed to be totally up front with you regarding something this important. If part of your setting the correct expectations up front, includes some particularly controversial or less than popular information, your best bet is to open up the floor for discussion. Let your employees be heard, listen to their concerns, show empathy, and let them know that you will take their suggestions into consideration as they may very well help improve your current strategy. Remember to always remain flexible and approachable, there is nothing worse than taking orders from an aloof and out of touch champion of change.
“[] when experiencing change, employees may respond with feelings of stress or reduced commitment and these feelings should work as a marker to evaluate how the change is going and what desired behaviors should be expected (Neves & Caetano, p2, para 2)”. Now that you’ve revealed the necessary information to your employees, after having enlisted the expertise of your team, it’s time to monitor your progress. Is it working? How have the changes impacted the overall culture of the company? What sort of information is floating around on the grapevine? If your changes are not working, why not, what’s getting in the way? Is the barrier behavioral in nature? “As a leader, you face both decision-driven and behavior-driven change. You have to understand which kind of change you are facing at any given moment, because you can’t manage them the same way. (Smith, p2 para 3).” In order to determine what is getting in the way of or inhibiting change success, leaders must uncover which obstacle they are faced with? Is the obstacle an issue with someone’s skills or abilities to perform the task? If a lack of abilities or skills is getting in the way, we can simply make a decision to have the individual or individuals undergo training. This example would be the result of a decision-driven obstacle. If the issue is a result of a lack of buy-in or due to resistance, then we may have a behavior-driven challenge on our hands. Naturally, decision-driven challenges are easier to identify and correct. With regard to behavior-driven issues, we may have our work cut out for us.
Why are people resisting? Is there some confusion about the vision of the change? Was there any miscommunication with these individuals? Was it an issue of them not feeling that their concerns were valued or heard? “Employees will not make sacrifices, even if they are unhappy with the status quo, unless they believe that useful change is possible. Without credible communication, and a lot of it, the hearts and minds of the troops are never captured (Kotter, p5, para 3).” Perhaps there are some employees that have kept the change process out of sight and out of mind and have become complacent. Perhaps there are those employees that like the status quo and feel that the way things are going works for them and they don’t think change is necessary because, from their point of view everything is just fine. These personality types can be dangerous to your ongoing change efforts if not nipped in the bud early on. As the leader you may have to make time to hold a meeting with this person and their manager to discuss why they are not on board with the change process and uncover what their aversion to the new process is. If they refuse to see eye to eye then it may be time to get rid of them and explain to the rest of the team that this person no longer fit into the culture of the company. “A negative attitude toward change can reduce work satisfaction, which, in turn, may negatively affect the relationship between the individual and the organization (Neves & Caetano, p3).” For those individuals that see the change as a threat and feel that there may actually be something negative that will happen as a result, it is important to address their issues and perceptions and help them to see the bigger picture while calming their fears and reassuring them that the outcome will be positive. Whatever the issue may be when it comes to resistance, as the leader, you will need your managers to pay very close attention to those people that aren’t getting with the program, ask them to observe them and report their findings back to you so you can devise a plan to overcome their resistance. “Employees do not naturally resist change, but they often resist change because of the way change is implemented (Spector, p9).”
“Employee[s] readiness for change can be defined as a cognitive state comprising the beliefs, attitudes, and intentions toward a change effort (Neves & Caetano, p2).” In order to encourage readiness for change, we need to create some sort of disequilibrium with the status quo, help employees see or feel or understand in some capacity, that the status quo is no longer working. Once we’ve stirred the pot and people are now feeling less than comfortable in what used to be their typical way of doing things, we need to give them a new norm to assume in doing business. By altering their patterns of behavior, we will be helping them discover and implement a new norm for the group. The new norm, that if managed properly, will become the new desired outcome to facilitate and encourage change. Now that we’ve been successful in implementing a new norm with our employees, getting them on the path to successful change, we want to “refreeze” the new pattern of behavior. “Refreezing the final stage in Lewin’s change model in which group members institutionalize the new patterns of behavior into a new status quo (Spector, p29).”
Maintaining balance throughout the change process involves six antagonistic realizations that leaders must be able to keep in perspective and put into practice everyday. Leaders must be able to generate buy-in and motivate the team to action by catalyzing change. Be a change catalyst. Leaders will also need to be flexible in order to properly cope with the transition that will be necessary to take place in order to correctly implement successful change. Leaders will also need to have a sense of urgency that translates into the way they interact with and lead the team. They will also need to have a realistic patience with the process, as there may be times when things may come to an excruciatingly slow pace, it will be important to keep the team on track and perhaps work on refocusing the crew from time to time. Leaders will need to be tough and make sure that everyone is on board, but at the same time be empathetic to those people that have genuine concerns about change and maintain an open door policy to address their concerns and overcome their aversion to change, whatever that might be. Leaders are expected to be optimistic, but to also maintain a realistic appreciation and openness to the ongoing change process. Change does not happen overnight, so those people that are impatient leaders may struggle with this aspect, if leaders keep things in the appropriate perspective, by having regular meetings and updates with their team, this can help keep them grounded on the realism of the ongoing process. Leaders will also need to be self-reliant and trust others, capitalize on strength and sometimes go against the grain, thus stepping out of their comfort zone to see the change process through to the end successfully.
In conclusion, effective change begins with great leadership. Without great leadership the change process is destined to fail. Great leaders can identify this and will make the necessary changes from within to see the change process from strategy, to implementation, and finally to completion. Great change leaders will also be able to recognize from the start that it takes more than one person to accomplish such a task. They will need to enlist the help of their supervisors and managers in order to strategize and implement a solid plan. They will also need ongoing help from the team in terms of identifying potential obstacles, as well as, coming back to the table with additional strategy implementation to help increase buy-in and foster the needed team dynamic to facilitate and follow through to the end in order to ensure proper change success for any organization.
