Lead Staff through Change

• Sixty to ninety percent of change initiatives fail, costing organizations dollars off the bottom line and lost productivity.
• Seventy percent of change initiatives fail because of people-related issues, which place a major burden on managers to drive change initiatives successfully.
• Managers are often too busy focusing on the process elements of change; as a result, they neglect major opportunities to leverage and mitigate staff behaviors that affect the entire team.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

• Change is costly, but failed change is extremely costly. Managing change right the first time is worth the time and effort.
• Staff pose the biggest opportunity and risk when implementing a change – managers must focus on their teams in order to maintain positive change momentum.
• Large and small changes require the same change process to be followed but at different scales.
• The size of a change must be measured according to the level of impact the change will have on staff, not how executives and managers perceive the change.
• To effectively lead their staff through change, managers must anticipate staff reaction to change, develop a communication plan, introduce the change well, help their staff let go of old behaviors while learning new ones, and motivate their staff to adopt the change.

Impact and Result

• Anticipate and respond to staff questions about the change in order to keep messages consistent, organized, and clear.
• Manage staff based on their specific concerns and change personas to get the best out of your team during the transition through change.
• Maintain a feedback loop between staff, executives, and other departments in order to maintain the change momentum and reduce angst throughout the process.