Resiliency: Crucial to Successful Change
'Resiliency' is one of those words, when used in the context of people and workforces, which tend to sound a little touchy-feely/HR department-ish and the kind of thing you can safely ignore. The truth, however, is that resilient employees, and a resilient workforce, are crucial to a successfully innovative organization. The more resilient your employees, the more likely you'll be able to implement new strategies effectively and efficiently.
Resiliency in the workplace doesn't just happen. It's built over time, and while individuals can help themselves become more resilient, it's more effective if they're supported by their managers and by the organization as a whole.
Assessing resiliency is an important part of the change management process - but it needs to happen well before any change is implemented. Ideally, before you undertake any change initiatives, you'll ensure you've built some resiliency within the organization.
Characteristics of resiliency
How can you determine whether your organization is resilient enough to embrace change?
Research shows that resilient individuals display specific characteristics. Though not all experts agree on every characteristic, the four most commonly cited are the following:
Sense of purpose: Studies show that people with a sense of purpose in their life can use that as a stabilizer in times of change. Having a sense of purpose helps people manage through disruptions more effectively because it provides a context or perspective for change. It's not uncommon for people to get so caught up in the day-to-day activities of their job that they forget why they chose or loved it in the first place.
As a company, your employees' sense of purpose can be found in the company's vision and mission statements. Vision and mission statements are designed to give context and meaning to the work every employee dodes. Although having meaningful vision and mission statements can't guarantee resiliency at the individual level, it can help to provide the context and perspective that can contribute to employees' sense of purpose.
Ask yourself: Are the organization's vision and mission statements known throughout the organization? Do people understand them? More importantly, do your employees believe in the vision and mission of the company?
Feeling in control: People who feel in control of themselves and their world are more confident as they move through change. A change may make them feel temporarily out of control, but they're able to return to a positive state. However, when we're not in control, we feel unsettled, which may lead to lower productivity and effectiveness. In that state, any disruption will heighten the feeling of being out of control.
At an organizational level, maintaining an environment in which people feel in control of their work lives is key. An organization that encourages people to control their success, and gives them the tools and support they need, is a resilient organization.
As you assess Control in your organization, ask yourself: As a company, do we encourage people to take responsibility for their own success - and then allow them to do it? Many companies tell employees they are accountable and responsible, but then don't give them the tools or support they need to be successful. A mixed message will undermine the organization's resiliency.
Teaching employees to be their own guides during change is one way of building feelings of control. When employees have the tools to create their own map of a change, they can build on their own feelings of control - and, as a result, resiliency. A 'map' is basically a way for them to answer some very simple questions: What is the change, how does it relate to our current business, how does it affect me, what will I do differently, what will my team do differently as a result, what other parts of the company will be affected, what opportunities do I see?
Once they know the answers to these questions, most people can begin to manage through the change successfully. More questions will come up and people's need for control won't go away, but at least they'll understand how the change will affect them.
Positive outlook: Optimism is very helpful when managing through change successfully and efficiently. An important component of having a positive outlook is not to dwell on the potential downsides of a situation - but not to ignore them, either. Some people are naturally optimistic; others are naturally pessimistic but can learn how to have a positive outlook. Resilient people not only focus on opportunities that can emerge from change, but can see themselves taking advantage of those opportunities - and succeeding.
As a company, negativity plays a big role in the level of resiliency. At the individual level, it's 'negative self-talk'. At the organizational level, it's the 'never good enough talk'. An organization that always pushes for high achievement may fall into the trap of never being satisfied with the current level of performance. While it's good to strive for high achievement, many organizations forget the importance of rewarding and celebrating the current high performance before moving on to the next set of goals. Employees who work extremely hard and exceed their goals, only to be told that their performance is 'adequate', start to believe that they'll never be good enough - and that can undermine even the most positive employee's optimism, which in turn undermines the organization's resiliency.
Physical and spiritual well-being: It's a well-known fact that stress takes a terrible toll on humans both physically and emotionally. It's very hard to be resilient if you're physically and emotionally exhausted. Resilient individuals recognize the importance of this and make a concerted effort to balance their lives with enough rest, time away from work, exercise and healthy foods. Organizations can build the well-being of their workforce by encouraging and allowing for work/life balance.
Now, it isn't the role of the company to play 'mother' and get everyone to eat right and exercise. However, providing healthy food in the cafeteria, encouraging exercise via gym facilities or memberships - these things can play a role in the way the organization affects its employees.
A company president who is known to check and send email until 1am, 7 days a week, and praises people who consistently work 12 hours a day is sending a clear message: Work/life balance is neither important nor possible for employees. But work/life balance is a business issue: Overworked, burned-out employees aren't resilient (and often aren't productive, either). A company which needs to change and grow can't accomplish much if they don't have resilient employees - and that affects the bottom line.
Resilient individuals can take care of themselves, which helps them move through each change or disruption with ease - and organizations can benefit greatly from that. It's important for a company to pay attention to the resiliency of their workforce as part of the strategic planning process. After all, you make all the plans you want, but if your employees aren't sufficiently resilient to carry out those plans, you won't succeed.
Change behavior first. Attitudes will follow.
A few years ago I was working with a large professional services firm which was implementing a new ATS (Applicant Tracking System) in their recruiting department. the system was designed to take in and applications from the corporate website and various job boards, automatically respond to applicants, and then help the recruiting team keep track of candidates throughout the screening, interviewing and hiring process. The idea was that the recruiting team would eventually have a deep database of candidates to call on, while applicants would be processed more efficiently and everyone would have a terrific experience.
Well, of course the system as delivered wasn't quite as perfect as it had seemed in the initial presentations by the company which built it. It didn't perfectly match the current processes, it had some very complicated features, and it wasn't quite as easy to use as it had seemed in the original boardroom presentation.
The staff began to grumble, and adoption of the new system got a bit wobbly. It was time for leadership.
The VP Recruiting, a well-respected and popular leader, undertood a successful 3-pronged approach:
1. Insight and input: He asked senior team members to provide, factual, non-emotional, functional-based feedback about the system. He ignored vague critiques like "It sucks!" but carefully compiled specific items like "It's difficult to set up new job boards within the system". Then he took this list to the developers and told them to fix them.
2. Training: In the original plan, the system had been positioned as so easy to use, it wouldn't require training. When it was clear this had been wildly optimistic, he quickly identified a couple of team members who seemed most technically adept, sent them to the developers for some in-depth training, and made them subject-matter experts with a certain amount of authority.
3. Brooking no dissent: While working on productive solutions to the problems via #1 and #2, the VP Recruiting meanwhile put a stop to any negative conversations about the new system. He didn't issue an edict or bark orders; he simply curtailed any complaints that walked into his office with a, "Yes, we're working on it - but in the meantime, just keep plugging, please," and when he encountered gripe sessions within the office, he subtly but firmly put an end to them by changing the subject or referring to the ongoing revisions and training.
Why did this 3-pronged approach work?
As a respected and popular leader, the VP Recruiting had the ability to influence his staff. By demonstrating that he knew there were challenges (by asking for input about improvements) and was willing to spend resources to get the required training for staff, he maintained his credibility. (When leaders pretend there isn't a problem when everyone knows there is, they risk look oblivious or clueless - both of which undermine their authority.)
Most importantly, however, he made it clear that regardless of the limitations of the system, the expected behavior for employees was to do the best they could and not waste time complaining. He was changing the behavior even if attitudes weren't quite there yet.
The result? The behavior change led to an attitude change. With the negative grumbling curtailed and the knowledge that there were some solutions in the pipeline, employees settled down to the new system and got on with their work.
Conflict at work? Change begins with the right questions.
You might have more control over the situation than you think.
The most difficult - and yet crucial - part of any change management initiative is making effective changes in the attitudes and behaviors of the people involved. After all, they've been working away at their jobs, sometimes for years, and it can intimidating - and a little scary - to learn that they may have to change everything they know in order to thrive in the 'new world'.
If that wasn't hard enough, what can make change even more difficult is existing conflict between individuals. I'm talking about the often long-standing conflict that tends to be based in fundamental personality clashes, working styles and work history, typically between heads of competing departments or teams. In a normal working environment, this kind of conflict can be contained, but in a changing environment, which can involve new teams, new responsibilities, and different reporting structures, it can be a real roadblock to moving forward efficiently and effectively.
So what can you do, as a change management professional?
My approach, as soon as I identify one of these conflicts (and if you've done your information-gathering correctly, they become evident pretty early on in the process), is to encourage the two parties to resolve their conflict, for the sake of themselves and their teams. I work with both parties and start by asking them to ask themselves the following questions:
1. Why is this conflict happening? 90% of the time, these kinds of conflicts are based in perceived insecurity or anxiety based on their work history together. One or both parties feels they have to protect themselves from a percevied threat, and that if they abandon the conflict or make an effort to drop their guard, 'bad things' will happen. If you can get to the bottom of the perceived threat, the involved parties can begin to addres and resolve it.
2. What is my [the participant's] role in the conflict? It's easy to blame the other person for a conflict, but most people, when asked to think about it, will eventually admit that they haven't been entirely blameless. Encouraging each individual to take responsibility for how they've contributed to the conflict is the first step to changing their behavior.
3. What outcome am I (the participant) looking for? Ask each participant, separately, what 'the best outcome' of the situation would look like. Their knee-jerk, emotional reaction may be "For so-and-so to get fired!" but when asked to think about it, most people will eventually admit that they want something fairly simple, like "I'd like not to feel undermined with my boss", or "Our public and private opinions remain aligned".
4. What does the other person want? Ask each participant to put themselves in the other person's shoes. This serves to remind each participant that there are two sides to every conflict. It helps lay the groundwork for empathy which will be critical for the next stage - a face-to-face conversation.
5. Is there any reason a frank, private discussion won't help? Sometimes, the two parties have never had a friendly conversation about anything. Putting the two together in a room, alone - and without everyone else in the office knowing that they're having a conversation - and encouraging them to discuss why they're having trouble working together and what things they may have in common can be a surprisingly effective first step to achieving at least a tacit working truce.
You might also consider having a third party there to facilitate the conversation. That might be you or a trusted HR partner. An important part of the conversation will be for both individuals to imagine what working well together without conflict might look like. One way to encourage this is to have each person complete the sentence: "When X and I are working well together..." in a brainstorming fashion, then share their answers with one another. The last part will be a commitment to change one behavior: "I commit to checking with X before speaking on his behalf or committing him to work" or "I commit to keeping the agreements we've made during a team meeting". Both parties also need to decide how they will continue their communication - regular one-on-ones can provide a good forum for that.
Now, I'm no Pollyanna, and I know that not every workplace conflict is solvable - sometimes one or both people are simply unhappy or a poor fit and the change process is a good time for them to move on. However, if you're working with good individual contributors or top performers, making an effort to resolve the conflict first can save a good deal of time and money later.
Survival, Inertia and Apathy: Motivation in Times of Change
What is motivation, and what happens to it during a business transformation?
MOTIVE noun \ˈmō-tiv : something (as a need or desire) that causes a person to act
Motivation is simply the drive that moves us to take an action. These drives might be physical (to have a drink of water when we're thirsty); intellectual (to read a book when we're bored); or emotional (to call a friend when we're feeling sad). As humans, we're motivated to do what we believe is in our best interests. Sometimes that results in positive achievements; sometimes in (retrospectively) stupid mistakes.
Our beliefs about what our beset interests really are can make motivation in times of change particularly challenging for an organization. When a new direction is announced, and involves potentially painful changes like reorganizations, staffing changes or business process restructurings, a quite complex web of motivations can arise:
Employees may feel their 'best interest' is simply to survive the change
Department managers may feel their 'best interest' is to keep delivering results at any cost - and to survive the change
Senior leadership may feel that their 'best interest' is to avoid being blamed if the promised results don't happen - and to survive the change
But how do you keep an organization moving forward when motivations are evolving, and so many people are going into 'survival' mode?
Establishing new direction
As a leader during a business transformation effort, establishing a new direction doesn't mean simply announcing a new strategy and then walking away as if the business will just continue as usual and the changes will magically appear. It means putting a process in place which encourages and supports each individual as they define wha the new business direction means to them.
This isn't 'touchy-feely, sing kumbaya' stuff. It's about helping employees understand their role in the transformation, how it will affect them, and what they can do to move forward - because it's only by helping them understand these things that the business change will achieve the ROI that it should. After all, it's the people in the equation who make or break a transformation.
Removing barriers
The number of barriers the organization faces depends on the nature of the business change. Barriers to change can be as simple as ensuring everyone in a specific department has adequate education in a new technology, or as complex as inspiring an entire organization to buy into a whole new strategic vision and approach to the marketplace. Either way, they need to be taken seriously.
Engaging the individuals who are involved in or creating the barriers is the first step to easing them. You can motivate a department to become engaged in a new technology by helping them understand how it will make their work lives easier; you can motivate an organization to become engaged in a new strategic vision by helping them understand how it will drive their long-term career goals and security.
Providing support
A key role for leaders is to provide support to the team as they change the way they operate on a day-to-day basis. Supporting individuals means listening, empathizing, and concentrating on their progress through a change. By providing assistance, feedback and counsel, you're helping them to see that their 'best interests' really do involve moving forward with the changes - and that helps keep them motivated to continue.
Remember: Support may also involve reiterating why a change is being implemented, what the goals of the change are, and why the timing of the change is important. This will help drive motivation.
Good leadership = Good motivation
People need leaders to lead, especially during a time of change. Sounds simple, right?
Except that 'announcing' a change isn't the same as 'leading' one. Leadership during a change requires a leader who is actively and visibly engaged during the entire process; someone who is seen to be removing barriers, providing support, and communicating the process in a credible way. When leaders do this, individuals become more and more motivated to work towards a goal which doesn't just benefit 'management' or 'the company', but their own best interests as well.
Knowing how your co-workers see you is crucial to your career
I recently worked with a coaching client, a senior executive at a mid-sized pharmaceutical company. "I don't understand it," she said. "I work hard, everyone likes me, and I've met all my targets for the past 5 years. But I just can't seem to get promoted to VP, while other people who I know aren't performing as well as I do are moving past me up the ladder. What's going on?"
Having worked with her organization in the past, I knew what the problem was: Yes, she had a reputation for reliably delivering against targets. But what she called 'working hard' was perceived by her co-workers and direct reports as 'obsessive and unable to let things go', and her desire to be 'liked by everyone' was seen by management as an inability to make the big decisions if she were put in a VP-level role.
The gap between my client's perception of herself and the way others perceived her was getting in the way of her career - and she's not alone. Over the years, I've seen many people get stalled in the same gap.
So what can you do about it?
Closing the perception gap
No matter where you are in your career, knowing how the people you work with perceive you - and that it's the way you want to be perceived - on a day-to-day basis is crucial to being able to get ahead.
It's not just about being able to get that next promotion, either. In my experience, the 'perception gap' can be your biggest obstacle when it comes to getting your projects completed on time, on budget, and with a minimum of headache. When you're encountering resistance to your efforts to push a project through, you may not realize that you're in the middle of a perception gap. You may be reading their resistance as concerns about budgets or timelines; in reality, it may be stemming from their concerns about your credibility within the organization based on their (possibly unfounded) perceptions of you.
You may never be able to close the gap completely, but you can make it lot smaller. Here's how:
1. Recognize that there is a gap.
It doesn't matter how self-aware you are or how honest you are with yourself: There is going to be a gap between how you see yourself and how others see you. Your self-perception includes information and experiences from all facets of your life; your co-workers only know the you they see at work.
2. Understand that the gap isn't necessarily negative.
You may in fact be harder on yourself than others are. My client, for example, had never taken accounting classes and assumed 'everyone' thought she was deficient in reading financial statements. Her co-workers, in fact, had no such concerns - they thought she was perfectly capable.
3. Solicit honest feedback - in writing, if possible.
Approach one direct report, one peer, and one senior manager with whom you've worked for at least a year and ask them for insight into your strengths and weaknesses. (Tell them that you're looking for honest answers as part of your personal growth.) What do they think you're fantastic at? What do they think you struggle with? What skill or trait do they most admire about you? What characteristic drives them most nuts, or do they think gets in your way? I guarantee you'll be surprised at the responses.
4. Look for patterns.
If one person criticizes something about you, you can safely ignore it; but if everyone has the same criticism, it's time to at least consider they have a point. So examine what your three co-workers had to say and look for consensus. Anything that all three mentioned - as a strength or weakness - is probably a good indication of how most of your co-workers see you.
5. Determine what's perception - and what's reality.
Maybe all three of your co-workers said that you seem to be a workaholic who doesn't know how to relax, and that sometimes alienates you from your team. Now you have to ask yourself whether you are a workaholic - or whether you've just been trying to give that impression because you thought it was a positive trait.
6. Create an action plan.
This can be the toughest part of the process, because it can involve changing yourself - or changing your job. For example, if you're being perceived as a workaholic, but know that you're not, you may simply have to stop talking about how much you worked on the weekend all the time. On the other hand, if your tendency to be a consensus-builder rather than a top-down leader is being perceived as a negative trait, you may want to consider finding a new job in an organization that values consensus-building.
The bottom line is that the more you know about the way you're being perceived within the organization, the better you'll be able to manage your career in the long run: You'll be better eqipped to work effectively, and you'll be better positioned for long-term success.
Inside Out: When Internal Communications Go External
6 ways to get ahead of the problem
It's every CEO's worst nightmare. You're in the midst of a change initiative, but you've had to make some tough decisions, and a few people have been asked to leave. But you're sticking to the plan, and you think things are going as well as can be expected. You can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Then one of your best clients calls to say that they're worried about next year's contract and thinking about reducing their spend with you. You reassure them that everything is fine - and you think that it is. But then you hear from a supplier who's wondering if you're still going to be paying your invoices on time, and expressing concern about their long-term relationship with you.
You're perplexed - until you happen to call a former colleague with whom you've stayed friendly and he greets you with, "What the hell is going on over there? I hear you won't be around this time next year!"
And suddenly you discover that a couple of employees involved in the change have been more confused and disgruntled than you realized. They've been spreading the word, and it hasn't been positive. They've been so vocal, in fact, that the word on the street is that your organization is on a collision course with disaster - and that's starting to make your clients, suppliers and other stakeholders nervous.
So what do you do, before someone forwards a confidential email to the competition, or, worse, decides to pen an op-ed about the state of affairs in a daily newspaper?
Managing change communications in a crisis
1. Don't panic. When you start hearing negative rumors from a couple of different sources, you can start to think that 'the whole world' is saying you're about to capsize, or that your entire workforce is staging a mutiny. Chances are, things aren't that bad, and you've probably caught it early. So don't go into full-on crisis mode until you've had a chance to speak to your senior management team and get an accurate assessment.
2. Don't look for scapegoats. You're probably feeling betrayed and angry, but looking for someone to blame, fire or castigate is only going to exacerbate the problem. What's really happening is that you're getting negative feedback about the change - you're just not getting it through the most productive channels. But negative feedback can be a good opportunity to gain insight about how the change is being implemented - so instead of looking for someone to blame, look for the opportunity the situation is providing you to improve the change.
3. Help employees to see the big picture. When quite a few of your employees are speaking to outsiders in a negative way, it's usually a good sign that they don't really understand why the changes are happening or why they're a good thing for the organization. So you probably need to beef up your messages about what these changes mean for the long-term health of the company.
4. Help employees to see the little picture. If the source of the negative messages is a handful of people or a specific department, it's likely that those people or that department is feeling disengaged from the change or that they're being shortchanged in some way. Arrange for one-on-one (or one-on-small-team) mentoring and communication to help thosse people understand their role in the changes and how their full participation is important.
5. Be as honest as possible, as often as possible. I've said it before and I'll say it again: During a change process, it's virtually impossible to communicate too much or too often. The more honest information you can share with employees, the more likely they are to 'get' the reasons for the change, and the less likely they are to spread negative messages outside the organization.
6. Revisit your communication plan. It's always better to prevent a crisis than to have to address it after the fact - that's why every change management initiative should have a well-defined communication plan built into the overall strategy. However, if you find yourself facing challenges, don't just go into defensive mode: Revisit your communication plan and make adjustments (more communications, additional channels, refined messages) as required.
Dueling Banjos: Can you lead change when everyone thinks you were just 'stuck' with it?
We often talk about change leadership within an organization: Whether the organization is changing their software, the sales function, or the entire business focus, having the right leadership is crucial to success. And in many cases, leadership starts with the president or CEO - it's important for the person at the top to be a positive, engaged role model for the change.
But what happens when the change is happening in an M&A (mergers and acquisitions) context? In those cases, there is often more than one person 'at the top' - each organization has a president or CEO or chairman, and it may not immediately be clear which of them will, ultimately, be in charge, or who will ultimately wield more power. This can create serious problems for change management, particularly in change leadership.
A few years ago, the British Journal of Change Management published a study in which several organizations were studied over the course of 7 years. One of their findings was that during the M&A process, change was derailed when individual workers felt that change had been imposed on management, rather than being led by management.
It's not surprising: In most mergers and acquisitions, one company is seen to be dominant, while the other feels like it's getting 'swallowed up'. It's not unusual for the senior leadership of the 'swallowed' company to feel like they're just marking time until their position is made redundant and they're given a nice severance package. It's hard to lead anything - including change - if you're just waiting for your pink slip, even if that pink slip is going to come with a lucrative cushion. And that's the best-case scenario. If the merger/acquisition has been acrimonious, there may be active negativity emanating from the executive suites.
When leadership figures appear to be ambivalent (or actively disparaging) about the changes happening to the organization, two things happen:
- Leaders stop being leaders: When leaders appear disengaged from the process, they stop leading and start looking like they're just victims of change. That's when employees start feeling like the change has been 'imposed' on the leaders - and start seeing their former leaders as fellow 'victims' of change. It's hard for anyone to lead much of anything when everyone's feeling sorry for them because they're a victim.
- Change resistance becomes more entrenched: It goes something like this: "If the president, who we've always liked, isn't engaged with this merger and seems to have been unwillingly stuck with it, then it must be bad. So we're just going to keep doing business as usual, and let those new corporate overlords put that in their pipes and smoke it!" This isn't good for anyone: It makes the existing employees of the 'swallowed' company look petty and unproductive; it makes the work environment for everyone toxic; and ultimately it costs a whole lot of money, either in lost productivity or in massive turnover.
What's the solution? More attention paid to the importance of transitional leadership during a merger or acquisition. Letting the leaders of the acquired organization disengage or take on a victimized attitude is short-sighted - and costs money in terms of productivity, increased turnover, and a longer ROI horizon. Leveraging those leaders to help facilitate change during the M&A process means the new, merged/acquired organization can start delivering efficiencies more quickly.
