In my last Insight, I discussed some common mistakes employers make when it comes to change management training.
Effective change management, in my opinion, starts at the top of the organization.
Oftentimes, when change happens in an organization, employees tend to internalize the change and so they find it difficult to embrace. Especially when they’re thinking, “Why is this change happening?”
When employees see upper management is not embracing the change or presenting a united front, employees aren’t motivated. In my experience, this is when change management becomes difficult.
Having a united management team will really show employees that change is a good thing.
In order for change to have a positive effect throughout, I feel it’s important that the company work towards getting buy-in from its employees. And if change management training is part of that change, it’s also important (and pretty critical in my opinion) that company leadership make themselves available to not only kick-off the training, but actively participate in the training, as well. If the employees see that this training is important to leadership, then its likely to have a more encouraging effect on all.
With change management, it’s all about communication, communication, communication.
To follow the saying in real estate, that the main ingredient is location, location, location, when it comes to change management in any organization, the key ingredient is communication, communication, communication. Your employees might not initially embrace the change, but if you communicate to them the reasons why the change is happening, how it’s going to be better for the company and how employees will be affected, they will be more likely to begin to accept the change.
Communication is also the means to help keep employees from making their own assumptions.
An Example
One of my new customers (I’ve been working with them for about eight or nine months) is not a very big organization, but they’re leaning toward becoming a large organization. They’re doing really well financially and they’re able to pick and choose who they do business with because they’re doing so well.
They don’t have the internal manpower to make the move to a larger organization, however.
They want to make a change because they know their employees are getting burned out and they also know they have a few employees in the wrong positions.
The company came to me because they wanted help in working with their employees towards this change and getting employee buy-in for the change.
In line with my recommendation for communication, communication, communication, one of the first things I did was conduct a focus group with the employees to find out their thoughts on what was working well for them, what needed improvement and to get some ideas for those improvements. The employees also provided their input on what they thought would help move the company to the next level and what they needed to be more successful in their jobs. I also met one-on-one with each individual employee to get any additional information on this change that they may not have been comfortable discussing in a group setting.
The company really needed to know what was required for them to grow into the larger organization they imagined themselves as.
Once all the employee feedback was received, the management team and I worked diligently for a few days to brainstorm and determine what their primary priorities were. We looked at priorities; we looked at business initiatives; and then we combined the two by determining what they could start doing now to accomplish their goals.
Together we created a plan for them to start communicating the new changes to employees because, as I explained above, communication is the key to effective change management.