Today’s guest post is from Lisa Jackson and Gerry Schmidt, corporate culture experts who teach how SMALL changes in corporate culture get BIG results in innovation, engagement, and workplace productivity, in an unprecedented era of rapid change and transformation. Visit them on the web.
A leaders’ job is to Go First.
Good leaders are good at being out in front with employees and customers whose insights directly impact the company and its customers.
This attunement fosters unified vision, essential trust, and a connected tribal spirit: the conditions for accomplishing great work.
However, in today’s dynamic world, most leaders also struggle to align (and re-align) people and teams toward continuous adjustments and changes to their strategy.
Imagine 2,000 (or 20,000!) people all attempting to hit a continuously moving target at the same time.
Now you get close to a leaders’ job in today’s frenzied companies, in which there’s a steady demand for:
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- Merging companies and/or processes,
- Ongoing significant changes in technology,
- New leadership team,
- New strategy for branding, distribution, or manufacturing,
- New structure (reorganizations).
In most instances, these tactics are supposed to help the organization move faster, compete better, and serve customers most effectively. But that is completely dependent on employees who embrace the change.
And that is NOT happening.
Why? (You probably have 5 answers by the time you’re done reading this sentence).
Employees are drowning.
Most companies issue a steady stream of poorly communicated “change on top of change” efforts, lack clear prioritization of projects, and deploy flavor-of-the-month and complex programs to get people engaged about it all. But what do people do when they’re overwhelmed? Most of us check out. And a mass mental-defection and productivity decline is exactly what’s happening in businesses of every size and in every industry. Maybe employees are grateful they have a job, but most are decidedly not grateful for the mass confusion and chaos most companies deploy in an effort to speed up and compete better.
In our experience, this happens because overwhelmed leaders simply ignore the basic 101 premise of human motivation: “People don’t resist change. People resist being changed.”
The Fingerprint Test.
If you want people to embrace change, you have to design a dialogue and process that allows people to get their fingerprints on creating the change, early. To enlist their help in defining the cultural change that will enable the business change to succeed. Some changes (e.g., a merger or reorganization) cannot be discussed publicly during the planning stages, but in almost every case you can involve people before the change with questions like:
- “What about our culture are you proud of, and that you believe supports our growth?”
- “What would you change about how we work, if you were ‘CEO’?”
- “We’re having a tough year. What do you see as the major source of our problem, and how would you approach making it better?”
Go First and LeadBIG with these two steps
Step One: Do something different.
Ditch the long surveys in favor of simpler anecdotal questions (1 or 2 of the above will do) in face-to-face focus group settings. In every case where we have done this, leaders are surprised by the cadre of thoughtful, wise and downright eager employees they find to champion a change, BEFORE you launch a change that impacts people’s daily routine, reward, ability to be promoted, or work environment.
Step Two: Engage
While you’re asking, collect ideas for more open, productive and friendly toward change work practices in a few essential areas:
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- Faster decision making that empowers the front line;
- Goals that “force” people to reach across boundaries and collaborate;
- Shorter, more focused meetings.
Yes, this is a different process than the one that usually emerges from the boardroom.
But maybe being holed up in the boardroom or office is the problem.
Leaders who spend more time out talking to the people who are making stuff happen – and making their customers happy – always find such conversations pay off, BIG-time.
Remember that old MBWA (Management By Walking Around) wisdom?
Maybe it’s time for a comeback.
Image source before quote: morgueFile.com
