Throughout my career — being a chief financial officer in companies large and small, being a corporate and nonprofit board member, and today as CEO of an fast-growing privately held startup — I’ve learned becoming a change agent. It’s a badge I wear proudly, the other which includes educated me as to what works along with what doesn’t when managing change.
Every change initiative is exclusive, however the truths about forcing change succeed are, more often than not, exactly the same. Here I’ve collected 10 truths about change management. Think of them like tools within a toolbox — you must have them close at hand, you should know putting them to use and you must determine the right time to pull them out and put them to work. That’s the alteration agent’s responsibilities.
1. Change is approximately people.
I lead a software company that provides a game-changing connected planning platform. And even though I have faith that technology will help our organizations grow, evolve and improve, change management is ultimately about people. As leaders, we will need to set the example in the change we want from the people around us. Since the great NBA coach Phil Jackson said, “You can’t force your will on people. If you need these phones act differently, you need to inspire these phones change themselves.” Only if you help individuals change can you wish to change an organization.
Related: 5 Principles for coping with Constant Change
2. Take the time.
Some changes are quick, but real, transformational change can — and quite often must — take years. We’re all amazed with how fast things change in Silicon Valley, as well as the ability to react fast can be important to survival. But, changing hearts, minds and finally culture (see No. 1) often can’t be practiced using the snap of the fingers.
3. Build a vision.
Stake out where you require a transformation to take you at the beginning of Change Management Books. Determine what success appears to be. That doesn’t mean every item has to be fully baked from Day 1. In reality, watch out for doing that — since it means you haven’t engaged the people who you should get up to speed along. And don’t be rigid, because that will obstruct of success. (More about that within a bit.)
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4. Engage your stakeholders.
This really is central to selling the vision you established. Get the people that will be suffering from the alteration, and acquire them involved and committed to the project and it is success.
5. Acknowledge tradeoffs.
When we are inspired to change, be familiar with the consequences. Think it is like pulling the loose thread on a shirt — it often might cause some control to go away. In the event you add resources — dollars, people, space or anything else — to at least one project, make an effort to know very well what might take a back seat. And time will be the ultimate finite resource, so if you ask a superstar who’s already working at capacity to do something extra, know that her productivity in their own “day job” ought to be shifted.
6. Use the willing.
Few people within your organization will jump in the alteration train. That’s natural; many people could have ways of thinking and working which can be incompatible in what you need to accomplish. So, while it’s maybe the least fun a part of change management, sometimes you need to bring in new people that share up your eyes, and release people that don’t. I don’t ought to let you know that staff changes can be very expensive, however 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 imaginable to talk about change. Town halls, emails, newsletters, intranet sites, videoconferencing, collaboration tools — they all have a location. Occasionally, it’s appropriate to talk about internal change with individuals beyond your small business, even perhaps the public. For instance, each of us were transforming Cisco’s finance department from a number-crunching machine into a strategic business partner, we published a Q&A from the Wall Street Journal on the project. People mixed up in effort shared the piece around, and took greater pride from the work — and some people we hadn’t had the ability to reach by other methods finally understood what we should were wanting to do.
8. Listen.
The communication I just described can’t be described as a one-way street. You’ll want to listen to individuals who are making the alteration, and listen to individuals suffering from the alteration. That doesn’t mean you value all feedback equally, or give the those who are complaining added time. But look a hardship on the useful nuggets in what people inform you, and plow them back in your plans. In ways, this is actually the extended form of engaging your stakeholders (No. 4).
9. Empower the silent majority to talk up.
Once you listen (No. 8), you’re planning to hear a couple of voices the loudest. Be aware that they’re not always speaking for the majority of people. So, give the silent majority a couple of ways to make their voices heard: Anonymous polls and surveys will help, but not you need to train and encourage people to talk up. I remember one situation where someone posted a really negative, scathing comment of a project in an exceedingly public forum. Instead of engage in this public platform, a nice but valued person in my team emailed him directly and incredibly respectfully invited him to dicuss — one-on-one, directly — about his concerns and helped focus on a remedy. He immediately backed down, and my team member then asked him to take back his reply to exactly the same public forum. He did.
Related: Why Problem Solvers, Not Whiner, Always Win running a business
10. Learn as you go.
Challenges will arise as organizations change; the failure or success of the change management effort relies upon the method that you reply to those challenges. For instance, as the finance team at Cisco became strategic business advisors (as opposed to simply back-office human calculators — see No. 7), many people found themselves in unfamiliar territory. These folks were brilliant accountants, but had gaps of their business knowledge. We addressed this by creating new learning opportunities and career development paths for people in finance. The identical is possible in different area of your company.
As I noted earlier, not every these truths connect with every situation. And admittedly, none of these things is specially novel, but that doesn’t mean they’re difficult to miss. The organization landscape is suffering from change management projects that failed for reasons which can be, looking back, painfully obvious.
But, every one of these truths is nuanced, and success depends on their application. The wisdom of change management is always to know which tool to use, so when to use it. And that’s where leadership also comes in.
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