Embracing the opportunity of change
Did you know that our Founder, Julia O’Reilly, includes Change Practitioner in her LinkedIn profile headline? While our work covers consulting, advising and HR leadership, our transformation and change management projects keep us extremely busy. This isn’t surprising, given change is inevitable in life in general, and at work in particular. Think about it: people are constantly adapting to new technologies, strategies and colleagues. When new colleagues join a team, they also trigger new ways of thinking and behaving. This is just the day to day - what about organisation-wide change and transformation? This is where the concept of change can really make an impact, both positive and negative.
Picture this: you’re a leader in an organisation or a business owner and you’re incredibly excited for a change that’s about to be executed across the workplace. You see the opportunities and you know the benefits and value the change will bring. You share your enthusiasm with your people and then are left feeling deflated when they don’t share the same enthusiasm, or worse, flat out reject any sense of positivity.
This isn’t an unusual scenario. In fact, it's one of the reasons we’re brought on to partner with teams to manage change. It’s also not incomprehensible. Put simply, change is anything that’s going from a current state to a different or new state. In organisations, it’s more often than not a good thing, that’s intentional and tied to a broader goal or vision and not just a whim. But change can feel like a threat, particularly when people don’t understand the reasons for the change and see it as ‘here we go again.’ This means that it brings uncertainty, increases stress and decreases trust, and none of those things bode well for productivity, nor embracing the opportunity that change brings.
Why, beyond uncertainty, is change seen as so inherently negative? In part, it’s thanks to a media landscape of doom and gloom, but another reason is because many of us can recall change projects that were managed really, really badly, leaving a bad taste in everyone’s mouths. For example, when change has been embedded poorly, where leadership takes on a ‘thank you, next’ approach as they move on to the next thing while we’re still trying to get our heads around the last change. This leads to change fatigue, confusion and ultimately disengagement.
However, when managed well, change can be an opportunity worth embracing.
So, what is a well-managed change process? First of all, here’s what it’s not: a transactional approach where people are treated as afterthoughts. Instead, we always advocate for a people-focused approach. The change management process will be more impactful when it is tailored, bespoke and individual, not one-size fits all. This means a deep understanding and knowing of the people both impacted by the change as well as essential to implementing it will shine. It’s this understanding that will determine how to deploy the different ways to introduce and execute the change, and this will be discovered through appropriate engagement strategies.
A people-focused approach to change takes into consideration the impacts to the people, as well as the processes, systems, tools and tangible elements. It considers the mindset and emotional responses that people might experience against this change, and does so with respect for the legitimacy of their concerns. People might be concerned that they’re going to be burdened with extra work, when their workload already feels on the border of unsustainable. They may worry that they’re no longer going to be able to work on what they enjoy, or they may feel a lack of control in the way they approach their work. The only way to determine concerns is to actively seek to define them, aka an engagement strategy. This will allow for an understanding of what the change means for them at face value, and in the here and now and from there it’s possible to deploy strategies that address the roadblocks and their resistance points. A strong engagement strategy as part of the change management process also allows people to navigate their own buy-in, and embrace the opportunities change offers them in their day to day of work.
Change is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be perceived as bad. A powerfully executed change management strategy can bring an entire workforce along for a positive journey. Conversely, a poorly managed change management process will make the experience much harder than it needs to be.
If you’d like to know more about our change management work, or perhaps catch up with Julia, why don’t you reach out?