Managing Continuous Change
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D.
A reporter once asked Dale Berra, son of baseball great Yogi Berra, and a major leaguer himself, if he was similar to his father. To which Dale replied, taking a page from his oft-quoted father, “No, our similarities are different.”
I thought of this comment the other day when a client I had worked with several years ago contacted me about speaking at an upcoming leadership event.
“Sure!” I said, “I'd love to work with your organization again. But tell me, are you facing the same problems with organizational change as when I last addressed this audience?” He quickly replied, “Oh no, it's nothing like before. Sure, we are still trying to get people to embrace change, but the change is completely different!”
Over 20 years ago, I began researching, writing and speaking about managing the “human side” of organizational change. At that time I thought it was a topic that would be a top priority -- for a few years (until we'd all mastered the strategies and techniques of change management) -- and then the focus would shift to more current organizational challenges.
I was wrong.
Two decades later, dealing with change remains the crucial organizational challenge.
What I overlooked in my assumption of change mastery is the radical way change would, well . . . change. Many leaders did become proficient in managing incremental change (continuous improvement) and the occasional (or annual) large-scale transformation. But managers today are facing a flood of continuous, overlapping, and accelerating change that has turned their organizations upside down. And managing people through that kind of change requires all the communication and leadership strategies we learned in the past - and then some.
The shift from “a change” to “constant change” is more than just semantics. The increased difficulty lies in the fact that most people and processes are set up for continuity, not chaos. We're built to defend the status quo, not annihilate it. But the world is throwing change at us with such intensity that there is hardly enough time to regain our equilibrium or catch our breath. Nor is there much hope that the rate of change will ease in the future.
So, what does it take to manage people through continuous change? Here are some suggestions:
• Realize that resistance to change is inevitable - and highly emotional.
Didn't think you were hired to manage emotional turmoil? Think again.
Being aware of and responsive to the emotional component of change is now a prerequisite for effective leadership. This task is complicated by the fact that the emotional cycle of transition (denial, resistance, choice, acceptance, engagement) overlaps - as one change begins while others are in various stages.
• Give people a stabilizing foundation.
In a constantly changing organization, where instability must be embraced as positive, a sense of stability can still be maintained through a collective focus of purpose. The leader's role here is to create stability through a constant reinterpretation of the company's history, present activities, and vision for the future. And, by using the term vision, I'm not referring to a corporate statement punctuated by bullet points. I'm talking about a clearly articulated, emotionally charged, and encompassing picture of what the organization is trying to achieve.
• Help your staff/team/department realize that change really is the only constant.
Never let people believe that once any single change is completed, the organization will solidify into a new form. Instead, help them understand that solidity has a much shorter life span than ever before. As processes temporarily manifest themselves in structures, we all should be getting ready for the next transformation.
• Encourage employees to mingle.
The new change-management fundamentals include an increasing focus on relationships and collaboration. Social networks - those ties among individuals that are based on mutual trust, shared work experiences, and common physical and virtual spaces are in many senses the true structure of today's organizations. Anything you as a leader can do to nurture these mutually rewarding, complex and shifting relationships will enhance the creativity and change readiness within your team or throughout your organization.
• Give up the illusion of control.
The biggest obstacle to the organizational may be an unwillingness to give up control. Rather than tighten the reins, leaders need to loosen their grip in order to align the energies and talents of their teams and organizations around change initiatives. No one likes change that is mandated - but most of us react favorably to change we are part of creating.
Leaders need to loosen their hold on information, as well. Transparent communication means disclosing market realities and the company's inner workings to everyone -- not just to the upper echelon. It requires an unprecedented openness: a proactive, even aggressive, sharing of financials, strategy, business opportunities, risks, successes and failures. People need pertinent information about demographic, global, economic, technological, consumer and competitive trends. They need to understand the economic reality of the business and why that reality is the driving force behind change. Most of all, people need to understand how their actions impact the success of change initiatives – and how those initiatives impact the overall success of the corporation.
I often tell audiences that “organizations don't change. People do . . . or they don't.” The similarities in today's continuous change may indeed be different from change in the past. But here's one thing that has hasn't changed. People are still the key.
Or, as Yogi Berra might have explained it: When it comes to the importance of the human element in change, "It's déjà vu all over again."
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D., presents keynote addresses and seminars for management conferences and major trade associations around the world. She is an expert on helping individuals and organizations thrive on change. Carol is the author of nine books, including “This Isn’t the Company I Joined”- How to Lead in a Business Turned Upside Down. She can be reached by email: cgoman@ckg.com, phone: 510-52601727, or through her web site: www.ckg.com.
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D.
A reporter once asked Dale Berra, son of baseball great Yogi Berra, and a major leaguer himself, if he was similar to his father. To which Dale replied, taking a page from his oft-quoted father, “No, our similarities are different.”
I thought of this comment the other day when a client I had worked with several years ago contacted me about speaking at an upcoming leadership event.
“Sure!” I said, “I'd love to work with your organization again. But tell me, are you facing the same problems with organizational change as when I last addressed this audience?” He quickly replied, “Oh no, it's nothing like before. Sure, we are still trying to get people to embrace change, but the change is completely different!”
Over 20 years ago, I began researching, writing and speaking about managing the “human side” of organizational change. At that time I thought it was a topic that would be a top priority -- for a few years (until we'd all mastered the strategies and techniques of change management) -- and then the focus would shift to more current organizational challenges.
I was wrong.
Two decades later, dealing with change remains the crucial organizational challenge.
What I overlooked in my assumption of change mastery is the radical way change would, well . . . change. Many leaders did become proficient in managing incremental change (continuous improvement) and the occasional (or annual) large-scale transformation. But managers today are facing a flood of continuous, overlapping, and accelerating change that has turned their organizations upside down. And managing people through that kind of change requires all the communication and leadership strategies we learned in the past - and then some.
The shift from “a change” to “constant change” is more than just semantics. The increased difficulty lies in the fact that most people and processes are set up for continuity, not chaos. We're built to defend the status quo, not annihilate it. But the world is throwing change at us with such intensity that there is hardly enough time to regain our equilibrium or catch our breath. Nor is there much hope that the rate of change will ease in the future.
So, what does it take to manage people through continuous change? Here are some suggestions:
• Realize that resistance to change is inevitable - and highly emotional.
Didn't think you were hired to manage emotional turmoil? Think again.
Being aware of and responsive to the emotional component of change is now a prerequisite for effective leadership. This task is complicated by the fact that the emotional cycle of transition (denial, resistance, choice, acceptance, engagement) overlaps - as one change begins while others are in various stages.
• Give people a stabilizing foundation.
In a constantly changing organization, where instability must be embraced as positive, a sense of stability can still be maintained through a collective focus of purpose. The leader's role here is to create stability through a constant reinterpretation of the company's history, present activities, and vision for the future. And, by using the term vision, I'm not referring to a corporate statement punctuated by bullet points. I'm talking about a clearly articulated, emotionally charged, and encompassing picture of what the organization is trying to achieve.
• Help your staff/team/department realize that change really is the only constant.
Never let people believe that once any single change is completed, the organization will solidify into a new form. Instead, help them understand that solidity has a much shorter life span than ever before. As processes temporarily manifest themselves in structures, we all should be getting ready for the next transformation.
• Encourage employees to mingle.
The new change-management fundamentals include an increasing focus on relationships and collaboration. Social networks - those ties among individuals that are based on mutual trust, shared work experiences, and common physical and virtual spaces are in many senses the true structure of today's organizations. Anything you as a leader can do to nurture these mutually rewarding, complex and shifting relationships will enhance the creativity and change readiness within your team or throughout your organization.
• Give up the illusion of control.
The biggest obstacle to the organizational may be an unwillingness to give up control. Rather than tighten the reins, leaders need to loosen their grip in order to align the energies and talents of their teams and organizations around change initiatives. No one likes change that is mandated - but most of us react favorably to change we are part of creating.
Leaders need to loosen their hold on information, as well. Transparent communication means disclosing market realities and the company's inner workings to everyone -- not just to the upper echelon. It requires an unprecedented openness: a proactive, even aggressive, sharing of financials, strategy, business opportunities, risks, successes and failures. People need pertinent information about demographic, global, economic, technological, consumer and competitive trends. They need to understand the economic reality of the business and why that reality is the driving force behind change. Most of all, people need to understand how their actions impact the success of change initiatives – and how those initiatives impact the overall success of the corporation.
I often tell audiences that “organizations don't change. People do . . . or they don't.” The similarities in today's continuous change may indeed be different from change in the past. But here's one thing that has hasn't changed. People are still the key.
Or, as Yogi Berra might have explained it: When it comes to the importance of the human element in change, "It's déjà vu all over again."
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D., presents keynote addresses and seminars for management conferences and major trade associations around the world. She is an expert on helping individuals and organizations thrive on change. Carol is the author of nine books, including “This Isn’t the Company I Joined”- How to Lead in a Business Turned Upside Down. She can be reached by email: cgoman@ckg.com, phone: 510-52601727, or through her web site: www.ckg.com.
Labels: change management, constant change
posted by ckg @ 7:04 AM
1 Comments:
At 11:13 AM,
Ben Simonton said…
Well done, Carol.
A willingness to be completely open and to give up control are certainly keys to creating an environment where change is accepted and even eagerly embraced.
Unfortunately, most managements use some form of the traditional top-down command and control approach to managing people. We can't blame them since society taught it to them from birth. First their parents told them what to do followed by their teachers, churches, government and finally bosses, all great training in the authoritarian approach to managing people.
But this makes them their own worst enemy because top-down demeans, disrespects, demotivates and demoralizes employees. Top-down "leads" employees to treat their work, their customers, each other and their bosses with a similar level of disrespect.
Fortunately, the opposite approach produces just the opposite result and causes employees to unleash their full potential of creativity, innovation, productivity, motivation, and commitment. Once unleashed, this huge mother lode makes performance soar far above any expectation, raises morale to unheard of levels and solves the change issue.
To learn more about my approach to this issue and to better understand the right and wrong ways to manage people, please read the article "Leadership, Good or Bad" and these Leadership Articles
Best regards, Ben
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