5 critical things in your business needed to set your leaders up for Change success

Leaders require particular organisation structures and enablers to be in place to be able to effectively lead change.

Let's explore these enablers:

1) Clear and engaging communication channels: Communication channels and methods need to be clear and functional. Even in large organisations I have witnessed death by email and written word. A picture is worth a thousand words - after all who has time to read more than a paragraph unless its well formed and engaging?  From strategic messaging to operational messaging, all employee groups should be clear in knowing which channel to go to for certain information.  Information that the individual leader can reinforce and link into. Change leaders need communication channels and methods that achieve cut through. This allows leaders to leverage the messages and allows them to create their own notes on how the change impacts the individuals in their team.

2) Departmental role clarity: When joining an organisation, one of the most important reference documents is an organisation chart. If you don't have your team listings or team profile up to date on your intranet then you are blocking people's abilities to be able to join the dots and let you know what is happening. Not to mention if you aren't able to clearly articulate what it is that your team does, then that in itself would be a fundamental issue. I have experienced on boarding sessions where my buddy was not able to explain what other departments actually did. Strangely, I have also sat with leaders who have struggled to explain what the purpose of their team was. So clarity on the role of your department and getting it out there, is a key enabler for leading and managing change.

3) Visibility of what is happening across the organisation: In many organisations, especially those who are impacted heavily by silo behaviour, there often isn't a source of what is happening across the organisation. By not having any such organisational wide activity summary, the leaders cannot get ahead of the messaging and effectively manage the impact of those changes with their teams.  Even more importantly, connections across the organisation cannot be made regarding the activities to make sure all areas impacted were being engaged. So if there isn't a change calendar in existence, it is time to create one!!

4) Diversity in your Leadership team: One of the biggest benefits of diversity in your leadership team is the different perspectives that will be provided when debating a topic. When it comes to leading Change, by having a range of views, collaboration gets taken to the next level. When preparing messaging, when discussing messaging with a diverse range of leaders, you hear more stories and variations on messages that can assist in managing individuals through change. Diversity will stop 'groupthink' which can cripple Change leaders when they begin to 'push' messaging rather than listen and 'pace' change.

5) Time:  It sounds strange to talk about time when no-one ever has any, yet this is critical. Change leaders need to create time in their calendars to digest change as it comes through and process the messaging so they can talk confidently to it. Leading a major reform or transformation piece? Create the time to walk through and do a dry run of your presentation. If you aren't making time to engage your creative side of your brain, then you aren't flexing your potential in leading change. Take the time to write a story that your audience can connect to, which relates to the change. Great Change leaders take the time to process and reflect on the change they are leading.

When these enablers are in place then leaders can focus on leading the change well. What are some of the key enabler that aren't in place in your organisation?