I know I'm not the only one who has had a crappy boss at one time or another in their career. You know, the one who manages through fear, is unpredictable, and loves 'playing games'. A common response to anyone who dares challenge their somewhat 'interesting' view of the world is to label those employees 'difficult and unappreciative', with repercussions sure to follow. Reporting into managers like this is exhausting.

Suffice to say that throughout my career I am lucky that I have only had a couple who fit this profile. In both cases when staff engagement survey feedback came back accurately reflecting how the team felt, rather than listening and responding, reactions were swift and emotionally driven. 

There were four lessons I took from these experiences:

1) Choose who you wish to follow. In both scenarios I chose to leave. Not through pressure but through choice and a realisation that I wasn't willing to compromise my integrity or values. I wanted to be inspired. I...

'Every successful organization has to make the transition from a world defined primarily by repetition to one primarily defined by change. This is the biggest transformation in the structure of how humans work together since the Agricultural Revolution.'

– Bill Drayton

Change leadership is now part of the job description of being a people leader. In the fast paced business world where changes are being introduced. Engaging your employees and inspiring them to perform well in a changing environment is a skill. So what are some of the ways you can be an inspiring change leader?

1) Engage your people: Get to know them and who they are. Engaging your staff on the change is not the same as simply cascading key messages and informing your staff of the changes taking place. Ask questions, have the team work on what actions they would like to take to adapt to the change. Work with the project areas or business areas introducing the change to get ahead of the change curve.

2)...

The ability for leaders to prioritise is a key skill in today’s business world that Executives need to master, in which to avoid creating a culture of change fatigue. 

Some organisations discuss the need for change resilience, when one of the contributing factors to change fatigue is already within their control through consistent prioritisation practices.

The constant changes of direction due to poor planning, or misalignment of local priorities to strategic priorities can lead staff to feel disenfranchised with the organisations leaders.

So why should leaders keep their people in mind when prioritising work priorities to strategic priorities?

Decision making in the prioritisation process can adversely effect staff morale. It can cause conflict and confusion affecting employee engagement and productivity. Even for the best performers in an organisation it is difficult to feel a sense of loyalty when it seems that the decision makers don't understand the people impacts of...

In the last post we talked about introducing change without compromising on performance, highlighting the change in the rhythm of the business when change is introduced. In the first post we talked about this in the context of a hurdler.

In that analogy we covered why it is important to engage those impacted by the change an involve them in creating the plan, so they can adjust more easily. That is one of the foundation principles of change - engagement of those who are impacted by the change.

Another key way in which to maintain performance in change is to always set the 'future state vision' and changing measures within the organisation so all people are clear on what the future state measures are.

There are two questions that are critical when discussing what the organisation or team may look like after the change has been implemented:

What does success look like?

How will we be able to tangibly measure that success?

This is one of my favourite sayings

This is so true. If...

What would happen to a runner of the 110m hurdles who, if between one hurdle and the next had an official run out and move the next hurdle just that little shorter?

I am going to assume that the athlete would surely stumble with their rhythm being interrupted, probably fall and have to get back up. After dusting themselves off they would have to start again to try and get into a rhythm. That is what it is like in a business if a change is introduced suddenly and poorly.

So what if the athlete was told beforehand of the change at the eight hurdle, and could plan and practice for him or herself in advance, knowing when the change would take place and what impact it would have on his/her stride. Couldn't they then  could work with their coaches (leaders) on how to adapt and still finish the race, hopefully in the top three? 

That is the whole focus and intention of change management and of strong change leadership. A combination of both can decrease the performance 'gap'...

The answer is so simple it is often never simply stated. The key to better change leadership is YOU. How YOU respond to change, how YOU communicate change, how YOU reinforce change when your staff resist, how YOU can feel easy in a world of uneasiness when major change is afoot and consistent.

Know thyself

The ancient Greeks have been attributed to this saying. The more you know yourself, the easier it is to grow into being a better leader in general and change leader. The more you will be able to communicate authentically and who doesn't like that in their Manager or leader?

The power of emotional regulation

If you communicate confidently and consistently, it makes you a better change leader. This takes emotional regulation to maintain consistency, especially if you have staff who don't deal with change well. Being able to be consistent and supportive takes emotional regulation from you as an individual so you aren't reacting to resistance or even worse being too emotive when...

When introducing a change you need to assess the impacts to be able to respond with the appropriate change approach to be able to support all impacted stakeholders in an effective way.

Some project teams and managers will down play the impacts that a change has on a team. When asked 'so is this a big change' the response may be 'it isn't much of a change' and then as you unpack the impact you realise that the change is bigger than most thought. The driver often to down playing the change is the perceived inconvenience or the amount of perceived effort there will be in managing the change, however what is undermined by downplaying the effect of the change is the project or program's ability to effectively manage the change for optimal results.

The top 5 to ask

So my initial questioning is really to get an idea of the impacts of the change. And here are my top 5:

1) Who is impacted by this change?

2) What products or processes need to be modified as a result of this change?

3) What...

So you are a leader - and your team is about to experience a negative change that is going to impact them. You know about it and you also know that you have some people in your team who may not react so well.

In fact you know that they will challenge the change, whinge and be disruptive.. so where does that leave your stress levels? Change always brings with it different degrees of stress. To both workers and leaders. When you need to lead your team through a negative change, as the leader it can be more stressful for you than anyone else, not that you can ever say that to your team.  

What are the choices you have?

Yes, know that you always have a choice..

Sure on any given day, just give in to change resistance. But when you 'give in' and crumble in the face of resistance from your team, just know that you are creating inconsistency and this has everything quite frankly start falling apart at the seams when it comes to change. Remember this is simply a fact and I have...

I shift in my seat whenever someone says 'that can't be measured' when talking about change management. I come from the school of 'everything is measurable' and I have yet to work on a project or program that I haven't put measures around so we could learn about what worked and what could have been done better.

Why are measures important?

Every time you bring a change into an organisation it is an opportunity to learn and improve. Organisations cannot afford to be stagnant in how they approach change, and the more organisations adopt a growth mindset the more competitive they will become.

Here are some key ways to measure change:

Enquiries and support needed for impacted 'end users' or clients to be able to adopt the change. For example calls to a Help Desk or Call Centre function. This helps you assess how effective training was, how effective the end solution was and how well the communication or campaign was received.

Typically these areas have a code they can apply to your...

When you are joining a project there are three priority things to do:

1) Don't assume that the project manager knows what a Change Manager actually does. Everyone knows that assuming anything makes an 'ass' out of 'me' and 'u', so be sure to ask the question of the project manager as to whether they have worked with a Change manager before. This will help you to understand their perspective and possibly past experiences - positive or negative when working with other Change Managers. One of the biggest negative gripes about Change Managers is that they don't 'do' anything. Unfair to say the least but it is also pointless being a Change Manager who decides to teach Change theory to a project manager who doesn't want to listen. You earn trust and respect by doing, delivering, listening and learning. So if that is the case it you will need to press the 'reset' button with the project manager, and agree on roles and responsibilities.

2) Meet with the Project sponsor to understand their...