When we talk about organisational change, we often have in mind large-scale, organisation-wide change that fundamentally shifts the nature of an organisation and often makes a strategic or significant operational difference. These types of change often go hand-in-hand with a re-organisation or a reshape and can include things like a merger, acquisition or a refocus of strategy.
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The challenge comes when these large-scale programmes happen alongside day-to-day operational change that’s essential to keep a business going – think of what might feel like small changes to employee pay dates or the introduction of a new way of doing performance reviews for example. Then layer on to this any unplanned change such as a public health crisis like coronavirus, the introduction of new health and safety legislation or welcoming a new member of the exec team. Things suddenly feel a bit busy.
If you put yourself in the shoes of an employee facing these challenges, how do you keep focused on doing your job, being clear on the priorities, understanding where and how the dots all join up and what impact this has on what you do?
Align things to the overall strategy…
I’ve seen many great change initiatives introduced in splendid isolation without being aligned to any strategic objectives or if they are, they are not clearly communicated beyond the senior leadership team. It can become really hard for people to understand how initiatives fit together when they can only see things from their own perspective and if there’s no story or narrative to help to join things up. The end result can often be disengagement or frustration for everyone. It can also feel pretty overwhelming.
It needs leadership teams to take time to plan and develop the story around the overall strategy and be clear on how that story is going to be shared (and by whom) within the team. Then, make sure you have each have worked through this for your own areas of the business and can clearly explain what this means for your own teams. This alignment is key to reducing confusion and building support behind change.
… and link it to other activities…
As well as creating the strategic link, join things up with other activities or ways of doing things you’ve already got. If we take wellbeing for example, how does it fit with attracting new talent? How can it be included a performance management approach? How does it help people build better communities inside (and outside) their workplace? By asking more questions rather than taking the change at face value, it will help to build this narrative.
… and pull it into the way you already do things
If you are introducing a new way of doing something into your organisation, then take time to look at what you already have in place and think about how it can be absorbed, rather than trying to create new processes or tools. As an example, I’ve worked with a client to develop change communication training for their project team and rather than creating something new, we’re working to build this into the current training approach. It might sound basic, but this means the skills developed will be included in performance management discussions and objective-setting so people can see it as part of their overall learning experience. It doesn’t just become another bit of training to attend.
Slow down
Sometimes, it’s very tempting to just ‘get on with it’ and just roll out another change project and get it off the ‘to do’ list. But by slowing down and putting a greater focus on planning up front and challenging your thinking, you can really consider how best to pull things together and fitting it all together. Pulling things together in a clear story or narrative that shows people inside your organisation how everything joins up, helps to reduce confusion, build understanding and lead to better engagement with the change.
If you need outside, independent help to see how you can build your change story, I can help. I’ve worked with leadership and communication teams to develop their stories, build messages and help roll out change for the better.