Change Management: 5 Tips to Support Your Teams

In today's fast-paced world, a company's ability to adapt to change is a key measure of its success. Inevitably, as a company evolves, it needs to put new tools and procedures in place, or adjust its organizational structure. As a leader or director, you need to be able to clearly communicate your vision for a project. You also need to be able to incite interest and commitment among your managers so they'll treat your vision as their own and champion it among their teams. Here are 5 tips you can pass on to your managers during such a transition. 

1. Convey the vision

If it is a project manager's job to oversee project logistics, then it is a manager's job to communicate their vision for change, and to show how a company transformation could benefit everyone. 

According to the Pulse of the profession 2017 study by the Project Management Institute, 28% of strategic initiatives fail, and in 19% of these cases, the failure is down to a lack of communication about the project, while in 14% of the cases it's down to employee resistance. It is therefore vital that your managers effectively convey the benefits of any changes to employees. 

As everyone knows, any transformation could be met with resistance — any change can create a sense of uncertainty, after all. Your managers should have a good idea of the potential reasons why employees show resistance when faced with new circumstances, and how to overcome them. Here are some reasons why employees may be resistant to change:

• Fear for their job: Managers should reassure their team, and above all they should be completely transparent about the repercussions that a change could have on their jobs and working conditions.
• Feeling they have been caught off guard: Companies must encourage an environment of trust, which is essential for reaching objectives.
• Misunderstanding: To ensure the change management plan is properly understood, it needs to be documented and distributed to every department. That way, every employee will be on the same wavelength.

2. Instill a sense of urgency

As well as communicating the vision, managers also need to convey the need for implementing change. One way of doing this can be to highlight the risks involved in not taking action. 

3. Get employees involved

Speaking about how they implemented a change management plan, Sanofi Canada “strategically included some employees who might not otherwise have been first adopters of the proposed changes to our culture. The combination of these qualities was pivotal to the success of our change program.”

Senior executives, managers, and employees will all have a different understanding of the procedures in place, their implications, and their challenges. Everyone can contribute to how this change takes place based on their own experience. By getting people from every role involved in implementing the change, everyone can take ownership of the project and become a vital part of its success.

Appreciation and a sense of belonging and inclusion are priorities for employees these days. You and your teams have everything to gain by asking them what they think about how the project is progressing, and by showing empathy, a willingness to listen, and positive leadership. During the project's implementation, your managers could also arrange regular meetings and Q&A sessions.

According to Prof. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science at the University of Oxford, these initiatives "help keep everybody on the same wavelength by bringing people together, helping employees to feel both connected and informed during periods of change." It goes without saying of course that coercive measures should be avoided.  

4. Set up a change management committee

A change management committee can prove very useful in steering change in the right direction. Its role would be to promote change, coordinate different teams' actions, and liaise between these teams and management. Your managers have a variety of change management models at their disposal to ensure the project's success, such as the Lewin model, the ADKAR model, the Kotter model, and the Bridges model to name a few. Each proposes precise step-by-step methodologies to minimize resistance to change, encourage employee participation, quickly hit desired targets, and make the change last. If needed, you can also call on a change management specialist to train your middle management team. This specialist will know how to unify everyone and put proven methods in place.  

5. Regularly measure results

A few weeks after the project has started, your managers should conduct an initial assessment with your teams. In particular, they should ask the following questions:

• Is the project moving in the right direction?
• What difficulties have we faced?
• What has succeeded to show the change is beneficial?
• How are employees reacting? Is there resistance to the change?

Your managers will write an initial report summarizing this first phase, with quantified results that they will evaluate to steer the project in the right direction. The positive and negative findings must be conveyed to everybody to remain completely transparent.

By ensuring that your managers are aware of these practices and implement them, it is more likely that your path to change will be a successful one. Change could even end up becoming an integral part of your business model and ongoing operations. But be patient! Major changes cannot be implemented overnight.