Managing Change More Effectively

They always say hindsight is 20/20, but the results of a new survey from Lane4 Management illustrate just how powerful retrospection can really be.<br /><br />The study, which polled nearly 400 executives and senior managers in 26 countries, found that 88 percent of global businesses had experienced substantial change within the past two years, but a meager 9 percent felt they handled it successfully. When looking at U.S. business alone, 91 percent experienced substantial change but only 5 percent felt they handled it effectively. Further, 89 percent of global businesses said they would have managed the challenges of the past year differently.<br /><br />&ldquo;The main way, really, in which we found that leaders wished they&rsquo;d done things differently was in actually reacting more quickly, kind of being stronger out of the blocks,&rdquo; said Katie Warriner, a research consultant for Lane4. &ldquo;What this was based on was lots of different things: reducing costs earlier, for example; restructuring sooner; getting the right people into the right roles sooner. I think it was a challenge to really stand up to what was going on in the economy and make changes accordingly.&rdquo;<br /><br />Considering the majority of survey respondents were senior leaders themselves, it was interesting to note that leadership was often cited as a main barrier to effective change management, Warriner said. <br /><br />&ldquo;[First], there was a sense from the data that leaders seemed to lack the knowledge and skill that they needed to lead change effectively,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Thirty percent of the leadership barriers related to inadequate communication &mdash; respondents talked about the messages being unclear, perhaps inconsistent, and often communicated too formally, so there wasn&rsquo;t really space for the interactive, engaging approaches like one-to-ones and informal gatherings.&rdquo;<br /><br />Warriner said another leadership issue that was frequently cited involved poor balance between top-down and collaborative implementation.<br /><br />&ldquo;[There was] a sense that change was often managed in a very top-down way, and so people weren&rsquo;t involved in why the change had to take place or how it was going to happen, which was seen to be detrimental to their engagement with any sort of change program,&rdquo; she said.<br /><br />For this reason, it&rsquo;s critical for leaders to tie change directly to the broader vision of the company, so employees can see how it benefits their teams and themselves specifically. They should also be sure to use multiple channels to project that message to allow for informal gatherings and feedback.<br /><br />&ldquo;I think in a declining market, that&rsquo;s even more challenging. How do you create a compelling story when the change is about cost cutting or redundancies, for example?&rdquo; Warriner explained. <br /><br />But there are a few ways learning executives can help senior leaders better manage change within their organizations.<br /><br />&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve looked at some data recently which has shown that between 25 and 50 percent [of workers experience] productivity drops in performance during major change,&rdquo; Warriner said. &ldquo;There are certain factors that leaders can [focus on] in terms of the environment that they create that can stop the performance gaps that we often see. One of the things that we&rsquo;ve found is that organizations who manage change effectively tend to focus on the people side of change upfront. It&rsquo;s not an afterthought; it&rsquo;s certainly not an insincere effort. It&rsquo;s something that shapes the way they work.<br /><br />&ldquo;The other thing is around the complexity of change,&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;Often, the role of the leader is to be in control, to set direction and provide clarity, and people look up to leaders &mdash; particularly in challenging times &mdash; to provide that clarity and certainty. But actually, in reality, it&rsquo;s this paradox [because] leaders are out of control in lots of ways. They can&rsquo;t control the sense that people make of change. They can&rsquo;t control how people react to the message that they give out within the organization. So being comfortable being in control and being out of control at the same time is a massive skill &mdash; one that is critical at the moment.&rdquo;<br /><br />In fact, it&rsquo;s these softer skills around engagement and communication that will be critical going forward, Warriner said.<br /><br />&ldquo;The change is where the organization goes from one state into another state, but it&rsquo;s actually the transition the people go through that determines the success of the change,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s psychology. That&rsquo;s the messy stuff. You have to help people let go of the old ways, first of all, before they can feel excited about the future.&rdquo;