Today’s rapid pace of change demands leaders to enhance their current communication styles and systems. Traditionally, change in organizations started from the top down. Leaders enacted changes that would cascade down the chain leaving everyone else to implement the new ideas. While steering the direction of an organization with absolute control does give leaders authority and may eliminate ambiguity, it can leave staff feeling disconnected from their leadership’s vision. In addition, top-down change leadership can result in a lack of accountability among all organization members and even breed resentment.
Humans are instinctively hardwired to resist change. Change can feel like a threat to comfort and security. Therefore, when leaders initiate change without the buy-in from their employees, the company culture can feel misaligned and teams may even become defiant to innovating.
For effective change management, consider these additional rules of engagement:
Prioritize Effective Communication. Effective communication is at the heart of overcoming resistance to change. Improve connection and build trust with your team consistently communicating a summary of management’s day-to-day operations as well as any upcoming initiatives that may take place.
Practice Active Listening. In the face of sweeping changes, most employees simply want to have their voices heard. Team leaders can engage their employees through active listening by asking questions such as are the changes working or how can we improve our new initiatives.
Shrink the Change. The reality is that significant change initiatives can be incredibly overwhelming, making overcoming resistance to change more challenging than ever. Shrinking change invites team members to accept and implement transformation on a smaller scale.
Encourage Collaboration. Collaboration is one of the best ways to practice overcoming resistance to change. The collaborative process encourages teams to approach designing change creatively and innovatively.
Change needs to be co-created. Teams at every level should be involved or communicated with as soon as change begins. When leaders incorporate teams early, there’s often lower resistance and higher adoption of all new initiatives. If you want guidance on effectively managing change in your organization, download our free Change Guide today.
Douglas Ferguson | President, Voltage Control
