Why is it so hard to make change happen?

Despite the efforts that leaders go to in communicating their future vision to their employees, many change initiatives still fail.

Leadership and employees need the opportunity to develop a shared, personal commitment to the change needed, and an understanding of how to deliver it.

What is the human cost of holding a "them" and "us" attitude about the people you work with?

One of the most pressing challenges that we experience when we work with organisations is the perjorative use of the pronoun “they”. It can creates internal silos and people “chucking things over the wall at each other” without understanding the impact of their actions or how they are unconsciously constructing stories about each other that get in the way of collaboration, and at what cost?

When you are focused each day on the challenges you and your team are facing it can firstly be overwhelming and secondly it can feel very isolating. More often than not we realise that issues have been built up and frustrations have evolved that are born of silence. When was the last time you discussed your relationship to another person at work? Probably never, right? It is still not the norm, not the done thing.

Yet what is the cost to the company of the existence of silos? In manufacturing, what is the cost of the rework it might mean? What is the cost of silos to your customer relationships? In the past collaboration, creativity and innovation have been things that organisations strived for to achieve a competitive advantage. Now it is becoming clear that they have become essential for survival.

So how do you break down these silos?

In the first instance – talk to each other. Make sense of the impact you each have and celebrate what works well.

In the second instance – contract with each other about how you will work together. Yes, it is counter to most organisational cultures to discuss such topics, but agreeing what you will do if something isn’t working for you and agreeing how you will talk about it, makes it far easier to bring up what could be seen as emotive topics.

A Rich Picture doesn't always give you the Big Picture

In our experience there is a common misconception that rich pictures are effective in shifting cultures or behaviours when created to transmit information.

Visualising a strategy and sticking it on a wall or a mouse mat does not lead to people changing the way they work.

We believe that the best way to engage with employees is for leadership to co-create a Big Picture with them, allow them to make sense of what the change means for them in dialogue and listen to what they have to say.

Change doesn’t come from telling people with a better piece of paper.

Who are you really doing it for?

Employee engagement initiatives can often be motivated by a desire to increase performance. The hope is that staff will reciprocate the care shown to them and want to commit to going the extra mile. 

However, a desire for increased discretionary effort to improve performance can seem self-serving to staff and undermine any genuine care for their wellbeing. This can result in cynicism and distrust, the expectation of more discretionary effort becoming a contradiction in terms. If a gesture of care and commitment from the leadership is perceived by staff as fake, the impact on trust and goodwill may be quite counterproductive, increasing the likelihood of disengagement that could lead to a lowering of performance. 

So, before starting an engagement or change activity, ask yourself: who are you really doing it for?

Here be wild things

What is it that motivates us to work? A bag of doubloons can get you only so far, while a story, an ambition, a vision will take you around the globe and back again.

The only thing missing from this for me is the space for those engaged to make sense of why and what it may mean for them to undertake such a task.