What does ‘managing change with courage and integrity’ mean?
It means having the courage to make tough or unpopular decisions when you know it’s the right thing to do and doing the right thing for your employees and your organisation. That may mean putting in a bit of extra effort or taking a bit longer to get the change right.
Why is it important to involve our employees in the changes we’re planning?
Most changes will involve asking your employees to adjust to a new way of doing things and success may be reliant on their willingness or ability to do so. They are less likely to want to adapt if they don’t understand why the change is needed and may resist if they perceive the change as a threat.
Involving your employees early in the change process will improve understanding of the reasons for the change and how it might affect them, highlight capability gaps and training needs and build a sense of change being ‘done with’ rather than ‘done to’ the workforce.
What if we just press ahead without involving employees?
You might introduce your changes successfully. But change can be disruptive and unsettling for employees, especially if they don’t feel that it is being managed well or might not serve them well. You might lose good employees and a lot of goodwill along the way.
How can external advice help?
It can be very helpful to have an objective view from someone who isn’t part of the business and who can ask questions and help you work through the detail of your change and build a range of options for implementation. We can also draw on our experience of other change programmes to help your change go smoothly and equip your leaders and managers with the skills to help them manage current and future change.
Having someone independent to advise on or provide support to employees affected by change can also take away some of the anxiety that employees naturally feel and equip them to manage their personal transitions successfully.
What do you mean by ‘alignment’?
Alignment means taking a look at the wider implications of change and making sure that your employees’ objectives connect to and support the business objectives and that teams and individuals are organised and motivated to deliver common goals. For individual employees it may mean working to ensure they are engaged with the organisation’s goals and values and not pulling in a different direction.
