Throughout my career — like a chief financial officer in companies big and small, like a corporate and nonprofit board member, now as CEO of your fast-growing privately owned startup — I’ve learned to become change agent. It’s a badge I wear proudly, and something that has trained me in by what works and what doesn’t when managing change.
Every change initiative is unique, but the truths about creating change succeed are, by and large, precisely the same. Here I’ve collected 10 truths about change management. Think about them like tools within a toolbox — you’ll want them nearby, you have to know how to use them so you must determine the correct time for it to pull them out and set the right results. That’s the change agent’s primary job.
1. Change is all about people.
I lead a software company that provides a game-changing connected planning platform. Even though I believe that technology can 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’d like from your people around us. As the great NBA coach Phil Jackson said, “You can’t force your may on people. If you want these to act differently, you need to inspire these to change themselves.” Only if you help individuals change can you aspire to change a business.
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2. Spend some time.
Some changes are quick, but real, transformational change can — and frequently must — take years. We’re all amazed with how quick things alternation in Silicon Valley, along with the power to react fast can be important survival. But, changing hearts, minds and consequently culture (see No. 1) often can’t be practiced using the snap of the fingers.
3. Create a vision.
Stake out that you require a transformation to take you at the outset of Change Management Books. Know what success looks like. That doesn’t mean every item has being fully baked from Day One. The truth is, stay away from doing that — as it means you haven’t engaged the people who you should get up to speed along with you. And don’t be rigid, because that may impede of success. (More about that within a bit.)
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4. Engage your stakeholders.
This can be central to selling the vision you established. Find out the people that is going to be impacted by the change, and have them involved and purchased the project as well as success.
5. Acknowledge tradeoffs.
When people are required to change, be aware of the results. Think it is like pulling the loose thread on a shirt — it sometimes could cause a control button to go away. In case you add resources — dollars, people, space or something different — to at least one project, attempt to determine what normally takes a back seat. And time is the ultimate finite resource, if you decide to ask a superstar who’s already working at capability to do something extra, understand that her productivity in her “day job” ought to be shifted.
6. Help the willing.
Not everyone in your organization will probably jump in the change train. That’s natural; some people could have ways of thinking and working which can be incompatible in doing what you need to accomplish. So, while it’s maybe the least fun part of change management, sometimes you need to make new people that share how well you see, and release people that don’t. I don’t ought to tell you that staff changes can be very expensive, but the costs of misalignment and wasted time on resisters are very much greater.
7. Overcommunicate — and then communicate more.
I’ve used every medium imaginable to communicate about change. Town halls, emails, newsletters, intranet sites, videoconferencing, collaboration tools — they all have a place. In some instances, it’s appropriate to speak about internal change with others outside of your business, possibly even the general public. By way of example, in the end were transforming Cisco’s finance department coming from a number-crunching machine in to a strategic business partner, we published a Q&A within the Wall Street Journal about the project. People active in the effort shared the piece around, and took greater pride within the work — plus some people we hadn’t had the ability to reach by other methods finally understood that which you were attempting to do.
8. Listen.
The communication I merely described can’t be considered a one-way street. You have to pay attention to individuals who are making the change, and pay attention to the folks impacted by the change. That doesn’t mean you value all feedback equally, or provide people who find themselves complaining more hours. But look hard for the useful nuggets as to what people let you know, and plow it into the plans. In ways, here is the extended type of engaging your stakeholders (No. 4).
9. Empower the silent majority to talk up.
Whenever you listen (No. 8), you’re likely to hear several voices the loudest. Remember that they’re not invariably speaking for almost all people. So, provide silent majority several methods to make their voices heard: Anonymous polls and surveys can help, but may you need to train and persuade folks to talk up. I recall one situation where someone posted an extremely negative, scathing comment about a project in a really public forum. As an alternative to engage within this public platform, a quiet but valued part of my team emailed him directly and intensely respectfully invited him to dicuss — private, personally — about his concerns and helped focus on an answer. He or she immediately backed down, and my team member then asked him to take back his reply to precisely the same public forum. He did.
Related: Why Problem Solvers, Not Whiner, Always Win in Business
10. Learn as you go along.
Challenges will arise as organizations change; the failure or success of the change management effort depends on how you answer those challenges. By way of example, because the finance team at Cisco became strategic business advisors (instead of simply back office human calculators — see No. 7), some people found themselves in unfamiliar territory. These were brilliant accountants, but had gaps in their business knowledge. We addressed this by creating new learning opportunities and career development paths for individuals in finance. Exactly the same can be done in different section of your business.
While i noted earlier, not every one of these truths apply to every situation. And admittedly, none of these things is very novel, however that doesn’t mean they’re hard to miss. The organization landscape is suffering from change management projects that failed for reasons which can be, on reflection, painfully obvious.
But, most of these truths is nuanced, and success depends on their application. The wisdom of change management is usually to know which tool to work with, when to use it. And that’s where leadership comes in.
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