I was asked today to contribute to the Washington Post “On Leadership” column. My remarks were about how new beginnings start with the death of the old ways – and what this means for leaders of organizational change. Here is what I wrote:

“The beginning of anything new always signals the death of the old. Changing the way work gets done means employees having to give up the competence and confidence they gained under the old system. Employees under new leadership must relinquish the relationships they created with their previous boss. A work force relocating to new facilities has to move from the existing building. And with every “death” comes a period of mourning where people grieve for what they are being asked to leave behind. This is why you can expect that employees in the midst of a cultural transformation are almost certain to take a nostalgic look back at 'the good old days' and to mourn the passing of that familiar culture.

Effective leaders of change focus on the future without describing the past as wrong. It is almost always unproductive to tell people that they must change to 'correct' past performance. (It is also unrealistic to speak of “correcting” in cases where the past has been highly successful, but still needs to change.) In any case, it is wise to assume that workers have done their best. Telling them it was not good enough -- that, in effect, they were not good enough -- is demoralizing, de-motivating, and guaranteed to build resentment.

Instead of blaming the old ways, leaders can help employees detach from the past by allowing them to mourn it. To facilitate people through the mourning period, I've seen the past honored in a variety of rituals. From pictorial displays on company walls to parties celebrating the history of the organization, rituals help people say good-bye and move on to embrace the future.”

Not a bad way to think about the new year. If you take time to honor (and perhaps mourn) whatever beliefs, behaviors and attitudes you want to leave behind, it will be much easier to release them in order to move on.

Happy 2011 - I hope it's a good one for you!

ATTRACTING AND RETAINING TOMORROW'S TOP TALENT

Kendra is majoring in Finance in of one of the top universities in the United States. With one semester of schooling to complete, Kendra spent the summer as an intern in one of the leading high-tech companies in Silicon Valley. That company just made her an offer for full-time employment after graduation, which Kendra will accept -- unless she gets the counter offer she’s hoping for, from one of the world’s most prestigious management consulting firms.

Kendra is an example of “top talent” – one of the best and the brightest of a new generation of workers who are the future of your organization. Your ability to attract, retain and engage the Kendras (and Kenneths) of this generation will, in a large part, determine whether your organization will continue to thrive or must struggle to stay competitive in the years ahead.

The best and brightest of Gen Y are ready for you. Are you ready for them?

When I ask young workers what they most want from their employers, these four categories (collaboration, relationships, feedback and development, access to information) are always at the top of the list.

Want #1: Collaboration and teamwork. Gen Y comes with a collaborative mindset, partly because they are the Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, social-networking generation and accustomed to sharing ideas, exchanging knowledge, and working collectively. They don’t want to work in pyramid hierarchies, but rather in flatter, networked, flexible, and more collaborative organizations. They would also prefer environments in which people spend less time in separate offices and more time coming together to socialize and work collectively.

Want #2: Great working relationships. Members of this generation want leaders who will get to know them personally as well as professionally and leaders who care about them as individuals. They want to develop strong personal relationships with their peers as well. Millennials thrive on social connections, and are more reluctant to leave companies where they have friends. They see the workplace as a place where they mix and interact. For them, work is about being with people, and that’s one reason they might choose to work in a company, rather than as a solo entrepreneur. In short, they want to be a member of a community.

Want #3: Frequent feedback and personal development. The days of annual performance reviews are over. Or they will be shortly. Gen Y employees want constant, informal assessment of how they are doing -- are they doing it fast enough, are they hitting the mark? If possible, they want this information on a daily basis. Not telling them how they are performing makes them feel left in the dark, and they will most likely stop contributing or chose to leave the organization.

Just make sure your feedback isn’t all about what they need to improve. "Catch people doing things right" will become more than a leadership mantra, it will be a necessity for this “everyone-gets-a-trophy” generation whose abilities and achievements as children have been constantly reinforced. Recognition, reward and appreciation from their managers will be paramount in engagement and retention.

Gen-Y'ers also put great store in education, and they want to be encouraged and supported to create personal growth and development plans. They want the challenge and excitement of getting on board and getting up to speed quickly. They want to build their reputations within the company. The worst thing you can do is leave them sitting around waiting for something to happen. Instead, give them a task or responsibility they can own and offer a wide range of projects to work on.

Want #4: Access to information. These are the cyber kids who grew up with the Internet, so speed and access to information is something that they automatically expect. Computers have given this generation the experience of always having information "at their fingertips," and they are adept at using different data and technology to blend seemingly unrelated elements when solving problems. To a Millennial, the idea of cascade communication (where information flows through organizational levels, starting at the top) seems like a quaint concept – and a completely ineffective business practice.

There’s more you should know about them: They work to live, not live to work. Younger employees want control of their time, whether it involves organizationally structured arrangements such as flex-time, flex-place, contractual work, or management philosophies and practices that stress results over "face time." They're also looking for meaning in their lives, so is helping new employees make a "values match" between their personal values and the organization's vision/mission is key. As is letting individuals know specifically how their work fits in and contributes to the goals of the enterprise.

And forget about issuing orders. Millennials were raised to express themselves, and their opinions were regularly sought in family decision-making (especially when it came to buying and setting up the latest technology). In organizations they want to be included in decisions that affect them – not simply told to drink their milk and go to bed. Responding to this generation’s demands for inclusion, one high-tech CEO observed, “There’s nothing wrong with command and control leadership. It’s simply irrelevant in the 21st Century.”

Competitive salaries and benefits? Of course they're part of the equation. But as another executive told me, "If they come just for the bucks, they'll leave for the bucks." Retaining Gen-Y'ers will depend more on building their engagement – with challenging work, collaborative leadership, and a nurturing environment – than it will on salary.

But isn’t that usually the case with top talent?

Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is an executive coach, consultant, and international keynote speaker at corporate, government, and association events. She’s the author of “The Nonverbal Advantage: Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work.” Her new book, “THE SILENT LANGUAGE OF LEADERS” will be published by Jossey-Bass in the spring of 2011. Contact Carol by phone, 510-526-1727, or email CGoman@CKG.com. View video clips on Carol’s websites: http://www.NonverbalAdvantage.com and http://www.CKGcom. You can also follow Carol on Twitter: http://twitter.com/CGoman.

EMOTIONS AT WORK

Preparing for a speech to the leadership of an organization facing major restructuring, I asked the meeting planner for background on the audience.

“We’ve presented all the facts,” she replied. “But it would be much easier if everyone weren’t so emotional!”

In the business world, it seems, people are supposed to think logically and act rationally. Steeped in this belief, leaders quantify everything they can and try to present information in ways that help employees make objective decisions.

Emotions are not supposed to be part of the equation. But the fact is that all employees bring their emotions to the workplace. And the more I study the psychology of people at work, the more I see how emotions are integral to everything that happens in an organization.

According to the neurologist and author Antonio Damasio, for example, the center of our conscious thought (the prefrontal cortex) is so tightly connected to the emotion-generating amygdala, that no one makes decisions based on pure logic. Damasio’s research makes it clear that mental processes we’re not conscious of drive our decision making, and logical reasoning is really no more than a way to justify emotional choices.

Emotion gets our attention. Emotionally charged stimuli (ECS) persist much longer in memory, and people remember the emotional components (fear, joy, surprise, anger, embarrassment, etc.) of an experience better than any other aspect.

Emotions dictate actions. Since our past experiences carry an emotional charge that is encoded in memory, we subconsciously assess a new situation based on past emotions – and are then motivated to act on those we have labeled “good” and reject those deemed “bad.”

Emotions drive performance. Positive emotions increase energy, learning and motivation. Worry, resentment or boredom decreases physical and mental energy and impairs mental agility. And when the pressure becomes excessive, soaring cortisol levels combined with adrenaline can actually paralyze our mental functions.

Emotions can even highjack a negotiation. When we negotiate in a positive mood, it increases our tendency to select a cooperative strategy and helps us to avoid the development of hostility and conflict. Negotiating when angry makes us less likely to accurately judge the interests of opponents and less likely to achieve joint gains.

Emotions are highly infectious and “catching” them is a universal human phenomenon. A research study, conducted by Peter Totterdell of the University of Sheffield, had nurses record their moods each day at work for three weeks. He found that the mood of different teams shifted together over time. Totterdell also found this same tendency of emotions to move in a lockstep fashion in teams of accountants and cricket players.

It’s also true that emotions flow most strongly from the most powerful person in the room to others. We monitor our leaders and are extremely sensitive to what the boss says and does. Researchers at California State University, Long Beach found that when business leaders were in a good mood, members of their work groups experienced more positive emotions and were more and productive than groups whose leaders were in a bad mood.

Good or bad, emotional responses can happen before we have time to process them consciously. In a study at the University of Tubingen in Germany, people were shown photos of happy or sad faces on a computer then asked questions to gauge their emotional reactions. Subjects reported corresponding emotions to the photos – even when the pictures lasted only fractions of a second.

So I made sure my harried meeting planner understood that, sure, we all want change to make logical sense. But we also need – and it’s a primary need – to view challenges and solutions in ways that validate and influence the way we feel about our organizations, our jobs, and ourselves.

And that involves emotions. Because like it or not, as I told her, emotions have already been driving or inhibiting the organization’s successful transformation.


Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is an executive coach and international keynote speaker at corporate, government, and association events. She’s the author of “The Nonverbal Advantage: Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work.” To contact Carol about speaking or coaching, call 510-526-1727, email CGoman@CKG.com or visit her websites: http://www.CKG.com or http://www.NonverbalAdvantage.com.

May I have your attention . . .

A few weeks before the National Basketball Association begins their season, all the rookie players meet for a mandatory orientation session. One year, a group of provocatively dressed females were hanging out in the hotel bar drinking and flirting with the young NBA players.

The next morning, as the rookies assembled for their first session, they were surprised to see the same group of young women from the night before. Each woman then stepped to the front of the room and introduced herself: “Hi, I’m Donna, Cynthia, Karen, Michelle - and I’m HIV positive.”

That one carefully designed experience had more impact on the players than a dozen cautionary lectures on the risk of AIDS.

What has this got to do with managing change?

Plenty!

There is a section of the brain known as Broca’s Area, which is a sort of filter for sensory input, sifting through everything we see and hear and read to separate the useful, the pertinent, and the unusual from the rest of what we can call background noise. In other words, Broca’s Area looks at all input and lets pass what is familiar and commonplace, but stops to examine what is novel or surprising. When something is described as having arrested our attention, the phrase is more than apt: some piece of input or information has in fact been detained for questioning.

Have you noticed that it is getting increasingly difficult to get people’s attention when you are announcing an organizational change? Maybe that is because change has become such a common occurrence that speaking about it has become part of the corporate background noise. It simply slides right through the Broca’s Area.

As a leader of change - if you want to grab someone’s attention, you may have to move from announcements to creating an experience (a product fair, a panel of customers, a “secret shopper” visit to a competitor, etc.) in which people learn for themselves that which you would have told them.

Do you focus on strengths or weaknesses?

Here is a question I often ask my audiences: “If your boss told you that she noticed something about your performance and wanted you to come to her office to discuss it, would you assume that she had noticed an area of your special competence and wanted to bring it to your attention?” Among the majority of audience members who respond with nervous laughter, only a few hands raise.

Bosses tend to notice and comment on weaknesses and mistakes more than they comment on talents and strengths. Bosses feel it is their role to criticize because the old model for employee improvement is based on what one middle manager refers to as the “If-I-don’t-say-anything, you’re-supposed-to-know-you’re-doing-fine. I’ll-let-you-know-if-you-screw-up.” mentality. While continuous learning and self-improvement are valid concepts for future success, focusing solely on what is lacking leads to an unbalanced evaluation of employees’ worth and potential. It is no wonder then that most workers have problems taking risks and confronting uncertain situations. The focus is on weakness, not competence, and without an awareness or confirmation of their strengths, workers lack the confidence required to embrace change.

Todd Mansfield, Executive Vice President of Disney Development Company, found that his company had been spending too much time on employee weaknesses: “When we’d sit down to evaluate associates, we’d spend 20 percent of our time talking about the things they did well, and 80 percent on what needed to be improved. That is just not effective. We ought to spend time and energy helping people determine what they are gifted at doing and get their responsibilities aligned with those capabilities.”

Communicating change, collaboration and credibility

I’m speaking on June 9 at the IABC World Conference in San Francisco, where I’m looking forward to reconnecting with some great old friends – and making some great new ones!

My session (scheduled from 11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.) will be an overview of the challenges and opportunities for employee communication in today’s turbulent business environment. Here’s a quick look at the three key areas I’ll be addressing in “Communicating Change in Uncertain Times.”

CHANGE

A quarter of a century ago I was a therapist in private practice who had just agreed to speak to the communications department of a major bank on the "human" side of organizational change. It was my first talk to a corporate group, but from that program on, I was hooked. I became a huge fan of communicators everywhere and a passionate advocate for helping individuals and organizations thrive on change.

Organizational change efforts (still) fail more often than they succeed. And rarely because of poor strategies. Rather, it's almost always a "people" issue.

My session will begin with the lessons I have learned over the past 25 years - about people in organizations, and about what does and doesn’t work in communicating change.

COLLABORATION

Business functions operating as silos are a major hindrance to corporate performance in organizations around the world. I’ve seen firsthand what silos can do to an enterprise: The organization disintegrates into a group of isolated camps, with little incentive to collaborate, share information, or team up to pursue critical outcomes. Various groups develop impervious boundaries, neutralizing the effectiveness of people who have to interact across them. Local leaders focus on serving their individual agendas - often at the expense of the goals of the rest of the organization. The resulting internal battles over authority, finances and resources destroy productivity, and jeopardize the achievement of corporate objectives. Talented (and frustrated) employees walk out the door – or worse yet, stay and simply stop caring.

Today, more than ever, we need a unified organizational focus that only comes by breaking down silos and harnessing the power of collaboration.

In my session, we’ll a look at the communicator’s role in “silo-busting,” reducing conflict, and increasing collaboration.

CREDIBILITY

Traditional explanations of human behavior in the business world presume that employees are influenced most by meaning and reasoning.

But . . . recent studies from the Human Dynamics Group at MIT's Technology Media Lab, Xerox and Intel's research centers (and a growing volume of other evidence from psychology, neurobiology and sociology), suggest that this view is seriously flawed. The key to successful change communication may be found in understanding the kinds of signals ordinarily overlooked, especially tone of voice and body language.

In my session, we’ll look at the latest research about how credibility and trust are really communicated.

In addition, I’ll have my latest book for sale – and will offer a free management team “appraisal and training session” to the lucky winner of a drawing. (Email me for details!)

Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D., is an executive coach, management consultant, and keynote speaker who addresses association, government, and business audiences around the world. Her latest book is THE NONVERBAL ADVANTAGE – Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work. For more information, contact Carol by phone: 510-526-1727, email: CGoman@CKG.com, or through her websites: www.CKG.com and www.NonverbalAdvantage.com.

I'm speaking next week at an international conference. My topic is "breaking down organizational silos." Which is no easy task for any organization. Wherever it’s found, “silo mentality” becomes synonymous with power struggles, lack of cooperation, and loss of productivity.

Most silos operate in isolation. Because of silos, organizations misallocate resources, send inconsistent messages to the marketplace, and fail to leverage scale economies and to share valuable information. The foundation of a successful organization is an entire team focused on common goals. Silos erode this foundation. Silos can be monumentally inefficient and, worse, a major barrier to innovation, profitability -- and even survival.

But if silos are so bad, why do they exit? Well, for a couple of reasons . . .

Silos exist because we create them. Most companies are not organized around customer needs or outcomes. They are organized around functions (finance, sales, human resources, etc.), technologies, product lines, brands, etc. Then those silos are held accountable for performance within a narrow, often self-serving, focus. To make it worse, silos are left to compete with one another in the battle for funding, power and recognition.

In turbulent times, a silo mentality plays into the human belief that an "every man for himself” attitude is the only way to succeed. Nothing could be less true. In a crisis, it takes teamwork to produce innovative, cost effective and targeted products and services.

That’s why organizations that are serious about innovation and are striving to be more customer-centric do everything possible to break down silos and encourage communication and collaboration throughout the organization. Developing a culture for collaboration begins with silo-busting strategies: Flattening the organization, creating interdependent goals and rewards, supporting communities of practice, increasing cross-functional teamwork, and building trust between members of those teams.

There are mini-cultures in every organization. Regardless of the overall corporate culture, individual managers and team leaders can nurture a climate for collaboration within their own work group or staff. And the best of these leaders do so by taking the time and effort necessary to make people feel safe and valued. They emphasize people's strengths while encouraging the sharing of mistakes and lessons learned. They set clear expectations for outcomes and clarify individual roles. They help all members recognize what each of them brings to the team. They model openness, vulnerability and honesty. They tell stories of group successes and personal challenges. And most of all, they encourage and respect everyone's contribution.

As an expert on the “human side” of organizational change, I have been a guest on hundreds of radio call-in programs over the past several years, but I especially remember one in the Northwest, when an unusual number of disgruntled employees were phoning in with corporate “horror stories.”

People complained about being unappreciated and overlooked. They spoke of callous treatment from uncaring bosses, and reported that they worked for organizations “just interested in making a buck.” For the entire hour, calls followed the same line. Finally, in genuine disgust, the interviewer said to me: “The principles you're giving us sound so simple, why aren't more managers following them?”

I didn't have to think twice about my reply: “With all the diet books on the market, why aren't we all thin and trim? What could be simpler than reducing calories and increasing exercise?”

The answer to my question and his is the same. Things that are simple are not necessarily easy.

My work has enabled me to deal with business leaders around the world, and not once have I encountered a boss who despised all his or her employees. On the contrary, the leaders I've met were genuinely concerned about the well-being of people who reported to them. (Even the occasional leader whose only focus was on the bottom line understood that the best way to increase profits was to build the commitment of talented employees.)

In general, it's the soft skills of leadership that are paramount. Leaders (and their organizations) won't succeed without a genuine caring about people and the ability to develop and nurture interpersonal relationships.

This is something that the MBA industry is grappling with today. Many business schools are revisiting their offerings to see if they still have relevance in the 21st century. Consider Harvard Business School, the blue-chip brand of all MBA programs, which used 2008 (its centennial year) to convene worldwide experts on business education and plot its directions for the next 100 years.

The results: Deans and recruiters said that MBAs in general needed better communication skills, increased self-awareness and an enhanced capacity for introspection and empathy. HBS is now looking at several change proposals, among them a program to develop various soft skills in its students.

Isn't that simple?

Not easy, mind you, But simple.

A Matter of Trust

A few years ago I was hired to find out why the leaders of a utility company were having so much trouble implementing a large-scale organizational change. As I reviewed their communication strategy, I noted that the company definitely had a compelling reason for the change, a well-constructed change-management strategy, and an eloquent senior leadership team to deliver those messages.

But when I conducted focus groups throughout the organization, one comment kept repeating:” We don’t trust them.”

I was reminded of this when I read “Honest Signals” by Alex Pentland of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab. At MIT, Pentland and other researchers study the nonverbal dynamics of human interactions. Their studies show that body language, vocal pitch and pattern are so critical to human trust that they alone can predict the success or failure of an interaction.

A device called a sociometer tracks body language signals and vocal speed and inflection – but not the content of the conversations. It turns out that, regardless of the words spoken, people who use positive nonverbal signals (looking at the other person, nodding heads in agreement, leaning forward, and speaking in the same vocal range an speed as their conversational partners) will win the other person’s trust.

So - you may have the most solid rationale for change, a bullet-proof communication strategy for delivering that message, and articulate leaders. But if leaders aren’t sending the right nonverbal signals, they won’t be trusted. And your organization won’t have a successful change.

Upbeat in Down Times

Long before Dale Carnegie, the human potential movement, or self-help videos, a positive outlook was acknowledged to be a crucial part of high-level achievement. In today’s turbulent, always-changing business environment, a positive, upbeat, “can-do” attitude is vital for success.

After years of profiling people who do exceptionally well dealing with turbulence and change (those I’ve labeled “change-adept”), I’ve seen the power of optimism at work.

In Chinese, the ideogram for crisis combines two characters: One is the symbol for danger, the other for opportunity. The same dual aspects can be ascribed to change. With any changing situation, the danger of possible reversals coexists with incredible opportunities for personal and professional success.

So, in these uncertain times, nurture your optimistic nature. Instead of wondering how you are going to get through this – ask yourself “How can I take charge of this situation and use it to achieve outstanding results?”

DO YOU CARE?
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D.

At a claim office of about 125 employees, the head of Human Resources spent the day observing the claim manager. This particular manager had received fantastic feedback on her company’s Quality Leadership Measurement System (QLMS) survey, so the HR executive was curious to watch her with her people to figure out what generated this great feedback. And as they walked through the office, conversing about the normal work conditions, the manager would often stop and refer to specific individuals: "Steve over there has been in our area for 15 years. Steve also coaches Little League. They won their game last Thursday.”

They’d move on to someone else, and as they left that person's area, quietly the claim manager would say, "Sally had some problems with her daughter this year. You know how difficult teenagers can be. We've had many sessions behind closed doors where Sally’s trying to sort through these problems."

Months later, when I interviewed the HR executive, that day at the claim office was still etched in her mind: “It became apparent to me that this manager knew all of her people. And I don't mean just knew their jobs. She knew each individual – their backgrounds and hobbies, what their concerns were, what got them excited. She knew when they were upbeat because things were going well, and she knew when they were struggling and needed her time and attention. When I asked, ‘How on earth can you do this for 125 people?’ she replied, ‘That's my job.’"

Great leaders understand that you can’t pay people to excel. You can only pay them to show up. But once you’ve got them there, the leader’s job is to encourage people to excel by create an atmosphere of caring, trust and inclusion. Sun Tzu, author of the Chinese classic, “The Art of War,” “Regard your soldiers as your own children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys. Treat them as your own beloved sons, and they will be with you even unto death.”

Because leaders perceive today’s work force to be more cynical and less optimistic than previous generations, they often make a big mistake in their communications. They tend to present factual information about the organization with a too positive spin -- commenting solely on the most positive aspects to wary employees. Not only is this misguided communication strategy out of step with the reality that employees experience, it further widens the trust gap between leaders and workers. (“Are these executives working in the same company that we are?”)

Most importantly, a diet of all good news does not motivate employees to be more positive and upbeat. Instead of helping develop optimism, the lack of full disclosure actually encourages the rumor mill to fill in the missing communication, often by inventing or distorting information in ways that exacerbate work force apprehension.
A much more effective communication strategy is to level with employees about the current problems and challenges the company is facing so they will have a complete picture of the situation.

Earlier this year I addressed an audience of business communicators at their international convention. The head of corporate communications from a Fortune 500 Corporation came up to me after my speech. He said that the local newspaper had printed a negative story about his company and its environmental policies. After meeting with senior management, it was decided to rerun the news story in their in-house magazine, and next to the negative article to print the company’s point of view. The result was that employees were treated as adults, not sheltered like children. They were given both sides of the story and trusted to draw their own conclusions.

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.