Leading Change
Change is a constant in every business. Clearly, every business needs to adapt over time and this brings some element of change with it - whether it be a change to your brand, a new product or new offices. We don't do project management or manage change programmes. However, we believe that, faced with having to make changes that affect people in our business, we should focus less on change management techniques and more on simply managing people well - if we manage people well then they will not only respond to change positively, but they will start to become the instigators of change. As such our focus is on helping leaders/managers develop their capability which will in turn enable them to implement change in their business more effectively.
There is a common feeling amongst most managers that employees resist change. This may be true in some cases, but we would argue that where it appears to be true it is a function of people being managed inappropriately rather than a function of the change itself. It is probably because, in business, most change is "initiated" by managers and the rest of us only get to hear about it when the crunch comes! When faced with change, everyone goes through an observable and predictable series of stages starting with denial, perhaps anger, sadness through to acceptance and exploration as the image below shows.
These stages are not voluntary, they are part of human nature and it is characterised by a sense of loss. It is during the early stages of this process that people may resist change either actively (anger) or passively (denial) simply because they don't like how it makes them feel. The opportunity for you as a manager is to help people through the curve as quickly as possible and to ensure the curve is as shallow as possible (thereby minimising the impact of the change on performance).
By focussing on the management aspects of change you will:
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gain peoples' ideas of making the change happen - who says you need to come up with al the answers!
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gain peoples' commitment and motivation to implement the change - people own what they help to create
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be able to implement changes faster and with less hassle
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create a culture where people view change as part of their responsibility
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improve employee motivation as a result of them being managed more effectively
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spend less time solving problems that could have been fixed at source
For us change leadership is about developign managers/leaders. As such we can help you design and implement a bespoke programme to:
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help your leaders/managers understand the nature of change
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provide you leader/managers with a set of tools for managing change more effectively
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develop the capability of your leader/managers
Click on the image below for an overview of what a typical programme might include:
Click here to read our latest eZine on the subject of managing change
