After conducting a leadership development offsite programme for a large Indian manufacturing company, I asked the president of the company what his biggest concern was regarding the change initiative they had undertaken. He said he was worried about how the workforce will react, how the teams will stay together during this initiative and how they would be able to lead everyone through this change.
Many a time the best-laid strategies and plans have gone awry as managers and workforce failed in the implementation of these strategies and plans.
Managing the human side of an organisation throughout the change initiative is as important as the strategy but is often given less importance. First of all we need to understand that any major transformation process will create people issues.
Involve everyone
As transformation programmes progress from defining strategy and setting targets to design and implementation, they affect different levels of the organisation. Change efforts must include plans for identifying leaders throughout the company and pushing responsibility for design and implementation down, so that change “cascades” through the organisation.
Create a formal case
Employees may question to what extent change is needed, whether the company is headed in the right direction, and whether they want to commit personally to making change happen. They will look to the leadership for answers. The articulation of a formal case for change and the creation of a written change strategy and approach will reduce ambiguity in the minds of employees. Leaders must then customise this message for various internal audiences, describing the change in terms that matter to the individuals.
Creating ownership
I have heard many a time employees cribbing about the external consulting agency or their leadership that is leading the transformation process. The reason for this is that most of the employees feel that they are not involved and their opinions are not asked. If they do not feel involved, their engagement in the transformation process would be less. Ownership is often best created by involving people in identifying problems and crafting solutions. If leaders could adapt the role of facilitators involving as many people as possible, ownership can be created.
Address cultural issues
An organisation’s culture is an amalgam of shared history, explicit values and beliefs, and common attitudes and behaviours. Leaders should be explicit about the culture and underlying behaviours that will best support the new way of doing business, and find opportunities to model and reward those behaviours.
Understanding that all companies have a cultural centre — the locus of thought, activity, influence, or personal identification — is often an effective way to jump-start culture change. Leaders should ask if this culture supports the transformation initiative or what kind of cultural shifts they need to make.
Written by Santhosh Babu
First published in Financial Express
