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5 Principles for Introducing Change to Your Team
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5 Principles for Introducing Change to Your Team

 

Introducing change to your team can be challenging if not carried out with due diligence. Globalisation and constant innovation of technology result in a constantly evolving business environment. Phenomena such as social media and mobile adaptability have revolutionised business and the effect of this is an ever-increasing need for change, and therefore change management.

A company must evolve in order to stay competitive, and everyone needs to be onboard when change is on the horizon. To ensure leaders are experienced in handling change management, here are 5 principles for introducing change to your team:

1. Be honest about what is changing and why?

Speaking clearly and honestly is key to communicating with employees at any time, but especially during uncertain – and sometimes unsettling – times of change. People respond well to respectful and honest communication. Let employees understand the source of the change and the reason things are changing. More often than not, if its not done in a manner whereby employees are spoken down to or confused with unnnecesary jargon, the message is well received. You want to build trust from the get and this step is crucial to getting things off on the right foot.

2. Share your vision and explain the benefits

Now that you have informed your team about the change, get them to buy into your vision. You’re the artist here, paint the picture of what is going to happen and when. This will reassure the team of the road ahead and allow them to see where they fit in. Don’t stop there, explain the benefits that the new change will bring along, as well as the new opportunities that they may be able to benefit from. Acknowledge that things will be different, however once they buy in to the upside, the change becomes easier.

Look, if the change has no upside, be honest about it. Yeah it sucks that sometimes it may be change we opposed to and are forced to put on a brave face for the sake of the organisation. I’d let my team know that regardless, I will do whatever necessary to ensure that the process is smooth for them.

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
―Leo Tolstoy

 

3. Manage expectations

I read an article last week that stated “The worth of any business leader can be measured simply by analysing his or her ability to manage expectations”

I have to agree as when leading a department through change, managing expectations is more critical that ever. Clarify what is expected from your team, and conversely figure out what they expect from you. As you identify the key role players from your team,hold the relevant individuals accountable throughout the process. Ensure that you equip them with the proper tools, talent, resources, responsibility and authority necessary for finishing the race. If it’s not managed you will encounter resistance from the team which brings me to the next point.

4. Address Resistance

If the team are actively participating in the change process, some are less likely to experience resistance. The key to this challenge is to understand the true nature of resistance. Actually, what employees resist is usually not technical change but social change—the change in their human relationships that generally accompanies technical change.

Resistance is usually created because of certain blind spots and attitudes which employees have as a result of their preoccupation with the technical aspects of new ideas. This is also a great opportunity for you as the leader to coach your team through the change.

5. Empower employees to contribute

Control of one’s own job is one of the key factors that employees want from work. So, too, this control aspect follows when you seek to minimise resistance to change. Give your team control over any aspect of the change that they can manage.

If you have communicated transparently, you have provided the direction, the rationale and goals, and the parameters that have been set by your organization. Within that framework, your objective is to empower the team to make the change work.

What are your thoughts on change? How would you go about introducing it to your team?

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Leading in a VUCA World
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Leading in a VUCA World

 

Do you find yourself overwhelmed by the pace of change?

Here is what one of my clients very vulnerably shared with me:

“The big challenge I am facing is the uncertain world coming my way. My clients, marketplace, technology. people, processes, financial targets, span of control are all now very complex. Due to the pace of change all over, it has created a new normal – an uncertain world”

VUCA is an acronym used by the American Military to describe extreme conditions in the cold war. It stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. The rapidity of change is the fiercest challenge individuals face today. In saying this I spent several hours diving into the complexities this brings, along with what can be done from a leadership perspective:

Instill and promote workplace transparency

Transparency matters for a company’s culture, because it builds trust and stronger relationships between employees, management and the company itself. Keeping everyone in the loop leads to more collaboration and shared learning, greater creativity, faster problem-solving which eliminates going back and forth and ultimately improved performance. Most important, it keeps leaders honest. It’s hard to hold an out-of-whack perspective if there’s an abundance of open information pointing in a different direction. I am of the opinion that transparency should be one of the core values of any organisation and more time should be spent thinking about to keep it truly engrained in the culture as organisations grow.

Encourage your team to promote candid conversations with senior leadership. Hold a monthly Q&A session whereby these concerns can be dealt with in a respectful manner that allows individuals to feel comfortable raising concerns and speaking their minds. Remember the goal is to illicit information and seek collaborative solutions that work for both you and the organisation.

Have an appetite to learn

Knowledge is power. However, there are also cycles of knowledge relevance. Knowledge that is vital today may very well be irrelevant tomorrow. Hence, in a VUCA world, leaders need to have:

  1. The desire to learn: This puts the leader ahead of the learning curve to attain the necessary knowledge and skill sets in order to be successful in the present and also to have the foresight to anticipate the challenges in the future.
  2. The humility to unlearn: Much of the failures experienced by leaders and organisations are due to their unwillingness to innovate and explore new ways of doing things. The arrogance of insisting that “it has always worked in the past” will only bring calamity in the future.
  3. The urgency to relearn: When it comes to surviving and even thriving in a VUCA environment, timeliness in taking the right action is of utmost importance. This can only happen when leaders and their teams have a sense of urgency to quickly gain new knowledge and skills to address the new realities.

Get used to being uncomfortable and embrace change

A VUCA environment is all about change. Very often these changes are forced upon us whether we like them or not. Effective leaders don’t resist change.

When change does happen, good leaders are neither surprised by it nor reject it. Good leaders embrace change.In fact, great leaders change before change is even needed. They are always ahead of the innovation curve. These leaders have great strategic insights to anticipate VUCA conditions. Consequently, they will build strategies, processes, culture and crisis management plans to successfully mitigate difficult times.

I hope these tips were valuable to you. Let me know what you think can be done to succeed in these uncertain times?

Founder and CEO of Elite Performers. Shiraaz is a Leadership, Career Coach and NLP practitioner who writes on leadership and management challenges. He also targets other areas of personal and professional development.

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