Leading through Change

After you’ve replaced inertia with imperatives and communicated the change effectively, you need to ensure you light a fire under your employees to keep that forward momentum. Employees put up resistance because they are afraid, change will affect their mutual agreements. They also sometimes make hasty assumptions about the change implications. The antidote to both of these sources of resistance is effective communication. To keep employees motivated about change, you can also use several other approaches

• actively removing obstacles to change as they arise
• aiming for early successes, and
• sustaining the momentum

A leader can take steps to actively remove a number of obstacles as they arise. Once removed, the way will be clear for change momentum

• a lack of knowledge – Resistance from employees who feel they lack the knowledge, familiarity, or skills necessary to effect a change can be overcome by providing information and resources. This could include training, trial runs, Q&A sessions, informational resources, online courses, and mentoring. You can also provide change-oriented feedback to your employees. Knowledge is power, so supplying employees with the knowledge they need will give them the power to realize change.
• limiting policies – When your organizational policies are forming a barrier to change, the solution is to align those policies with your change goals. You can streamline your decision-making or documentation processes – such as cutting out the middle man and expediting decisions that are change oriented. And you can change the reward structure – by adding bonuses, incentives, or workplace contests – to reinforce behaviors and efforts that support change.
• a lack of leadership support – Your first attempt to get management buy-in should be by using empathy when turning inertia into imperatives and communicating the change vision. A manager who’s insecure or afraid will resist change. Try shedding some light on the positive outcomes of the change and showing the manager how well equipped staff members really are. Resisters could be reassigned so their influence on the change is reduced. If all other tactics for removing the resistor have failed, your only option then is to remove the block. Sometimes, no matter how you try to show a company leader the vision, the fear of intrusion on their turf can’t be overcome. Many leaders who make it through change initiatives say, in hindsight, that they wish they’d removed these people sooner. Removing managers who are obstacles to change is one of the hardest things you’ll do as a change leader, and as a result, your change effort could take longer than anticipated.
• a lack of co-location – To combat the resistance that arises from remote team member isolation, you’ll need to close the distance between team members that aren’t co-located. A sense of cohesion will bond team members together in the face of change, instead of making them feel alone and resistant to change. For this, you need to use tools that strengthen virtual teams and support remote employees through the change:
• team building – Make it a priority to have a live kick-off meeting before a long-term project to give staff members a chance to spend a few days together for team building and bonding.
• administrative duties – Be attentive to your administrative duties and team needs. Clarify expectations, provide documentation, and send material out to members ahead of meetings.
• communication – Keep employees informed and the lines of communication open. Study the various cultures represented by your team and make it a point to use global English in all communication. Staying away from meaningless acronyms and the buzzword of the day ensures any information you’re passing on is always clear.
• team management – You may find that with different time zones to juggle, someone’s always inconvenienced, so alternate conference call times fairly. You can also schedule one-on-one calls with each team member to build a stronger employee-employer relationship and provide team members with coaching and feedback.

Once you’ve drummed up support for your change initiative, communicated the change to everyone involved, and removed any obstacles, you’ll want to aim for a few early successes. This will improve morale and confidence, and dispel lingering doubts about the change. If you’re finding resistance in the form of pessimism among employees, arrange for some short-term wins to feed the faith in the change. Accomplishing some early victories will

• emotionally reward staff members
• diminish critical feedback, and
• add to momentum

Try to focus on tasks that can be completed quickly and will provide positive results with maximum visibility. Once you’ve managed to get some drive behind your change and secured an early win, it’s crucial to sustain the momentum. Unless you actively cultivate a culture of change in your organization, your initial success will wither and the support structure for change will cave in. Once people return to business as usual, you too are back to square one – trying to replace inertia with imperatives and overcome resistance. You can’t assume everyone is fully on board with the change. Don’t assume that they’re eager for the next wave, or that they have internalized the culture of change. Your actions must reflect forward motion, building on the momentum. You need to show you have a plan for the next step and a continued passion for the change.

When leading a change, you set yourself up on a solid foundation by replacing inertia with imperatives and communicating the change effectively. Then, to follow through, you’ve got to actively remove obstacles to change as they arise, aim for early successes, and sustain the momentum. When actively removing obstacles, make sure you combat a lack of knowledge by providing adequate information to diminish negativity. Make changes to policies to reflect change goals and get around limiting policies. If you’re experiencing an obstacle like lack of leadership support, work to turn that leader around and, if that fails, remove the person altogether. Also, manage your team to be sensitive to those who aren’t geographically close. Aiming for small successes will emotionally reward staff members, diminish pessimism and critical feedback, and add to momentum. Finally, don’t let momentum wane. You must maintain passion for the change and have a plan prepared. Key traits for leading change are