Navigating Organizational Change

This blog entry has been adapted from the August issue of The Quest for Workplace Excellence (sign up here)

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”

– Maya Angelou, civil rights activist, U.S. autobiographer and poet

Over the past two years, a great percentage of the questions that our clients have been asking us are about change. “How do I introduce this specific change into my organization/department?” “Why do my employees resist change?” “How do I get everyone on board and successfully implement these changes?” “Should we make change slowly or move quickly?” Change is a difficult, but necessary, challenge for every organization. Imagine if your organization had stayed the same for the past ten years. Yikes! That is a scary thought since customers and industries are constantly changing. Change is not the obstacle, the real obstacle is the attitudes that fight the change.

In this entry, we will use our collection of blog entries on change to paint the beautiful, and sometimes challenging, picture of organizational change and illustrate how you might expect things to play out.

Stay ahead of the curve
To be successful, your focus needs to be on staying ahead of your competition. The problem with rapid change is that it usually makes people feel uncomfortable, unhappy, and fearful. Strategies such as implementing the change fast and holding people accountable for results can help keep your people challenged while ensuring the long-term success of your department or organization. Read more.

What types of attitudes to expect
Once you have announced the changes that will be happening, we have found that there are typically three types of responses that you can expect: open resistance, indifference and acceptance: sometimes this last one can even be excitement, depending upon the change. Read more.

Common responses to change
When working with employees who have to face a change, realize that they’re responding the way that they are because change means having to face the unknown. Change is new territory and while it scares some people, it excites others. Know what to expect from employees’ anticipation of the unknown. Read more.

Understand the reasons behind the resistance
Understand why some employees resist change and realize that their reactions are perfectly normal. You will then be better able to change their attitudes and turn their resistance into cooperation. Read more.

Lead the Way
After you have an idea of what to expect when introducing changes, it’s time to work on implementing those changes in a way that gets everyone on board. We suggest watching the video below for tips on how to successfully implement organizational change.