This week’s lesson hit VERY close to home for me…. or rather, “close
to work”. My organization is 12-15 months past a major system
change that appears to be failing. When I say “appears”, I mean that
the system is doing what it is supposed to be doing, but the
communication and training of new processes supporting the system
have proven disastrous. Our senior leadership team is now in
recovery mode; assessing the damage done, what went wrong, and
what needs to be done to fix it. While I consider the best ways to
develop the communication for my adaptive leadership toolkit, I sit
here wondering… how could the senior leadership team at my
organization have done better leading its stakeholders through a
major organizational change?
I believe one of the most important steps in establishing buy-in
amongst a leadership team is establishing a shared vision. A changed
directed from only the top level down with insufficient support from
middle management will lack support from the very people expected
to carry out the transformation. First and foremost, leaders and
stakeholders need to know WHY change is necessary in order to
inspire the vision, “connecting the dots between the what, when, who
and how to the WHY is a key strategy for making information
relevant and personal” (Jakubiec, 2019). A recent survey in my
organization asked the question “Are you excited about the changes
that we are implementing within our organization?”. The resounding
response was “No”. The reason being was that most stakeholders
were very concerned about how their role would change and the lack
of information or training they had received regarding new processes.
They had no personal connection to the change, nor did they know
the “why”. With that being said, newsletters, emails, and corporate
media posts are all helpful in advertising change, but all levels of
management should be communicating directly via personal or group
meetings to share what that vision means for their respective teams
and how it affects them directly. a Not only will they gain buy-in, but
leaders and managers might be able to gain valuable insight as to how
to successfully implement the change or how to avoid potential
roadblocks.
In order to ensure change is successful and sustainable long term, I
believe leaders need to maintain a high level of involvement. There
should be consistent check-ins at all levels of management. Part of
those check-ins should be an inventory with stakeholders of what’s
working and what’s not working amongst cross functional teams.
Most importantly, short term goals should be established amongst all
affected parties. All too often, organizations declare victory with
performance improvements too soon, not realizing that the change
might have negatively affected another part of the business (Kotter,
2007). Small wins should be celebrated across the organization and
those meeting goals should be recognized.
As always, my ideas are open to feedback. I’m looking forward to
reading others input!JAKUBIEC, M. (2019). The Importance of
Internal Communication for Management of an Organisation.
Scientific Papers of Silesian University of Technology. Organization &
Management / Zeszyty Naukowe Politechniki Slaskiej. Seria
Organizacji i Zarzadzanie, 134, 47–62. https://doi-
org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.29119/1641-3466.2019.134.4
Kotter, J. P. (2007). Leading change: why transformation efforts fail.
Harvard Business Review, 85(1).
