The last 20 months has brought about unprecedented change. The business landscape is continuing to change and rapidly evolve without us being able to foresee what the future will look like.

When we don’t know what change is coming, how much, how fast, and when, how can we ensure we are ready and have the capacity for change?

The answer is to be a FORCE for change. There are actions every organisation and every leader within it, can take now to be always change ready.

THE F.O.R.C.E.

Every organisation needs a focus (a sense of purpose); orientation (leadership positioning); resilience (personal resolve in the face of constant change); coaches (a competent and enabled change network); and empathy (understanding and compassion for each other). Let’s look at each of those aspects of an organisation that is a force for change.

FOCUS

Every individual and team in the organisation need a focus – a shared purpose. This is what Simon Sinek termed “Start With Why” when he explored how leaders can inspire cooperation, trust, and change. The organisation needs a “why”. What is its purpose? Why do we do what we do? It is not about what we produce or how, it is about why we do it.

When every individual and team share the same focus, purpose, or north star we are better positioned to absorb change due to our cohesion and camaraderie. When we are all facing in the same direction, we are united, and we are more powerful as a result.

I have been talking about focus and the power of “why” regarding change for many years now. If leaders want every change the organisation undertakes to be successful, they need to start with “why.” So often, change is announced with “what” we need to do and “how” we are going to do it. The “why” has been left hidden somewhere and yet it is the most important element of change off which everything else hangs.

I often use this analogy to describe the importance of “why.”

Joe says to me, “Karen, we are going to Sydney tomorrow. We will go in my car, and I will pick you up at 8am.”

There is one fundamental question that has not been addressed and as a result I am not ready to get in the car and on the journey.

“Joe, why? Why are we going to Sydney?”

There is the organisational “why” and the change “why” and both must be aligned.

Without alignment change will not be successful.

The organisational “why” is its values and purpose. The change “why” must be aligned with those values and purpose.

For example, one of Apple’s core values is that privacy is a human right. If Apple were to introduce a change that could compromise consumer privacy and control over their information, it would be a total misalignment and opposed to the team and employee values and purpose. The change is failed.

ORIENTATION

One of the biggest forces for change is leadership and team orientation. Leaders and teams need to be orientated to embrace constant, uncertain, and unprecedented change.

Leaders and their teams need to be adaptive. I wrote about adaptive leadership in a 2019 blog. Leaders must be ready to adapt, flex and change direction at any time. This has always been the case, but the uncertainty brought about by the pandemic has heightened the need.

Adaptive leaders can sense, read the signals, and respond. They can chart a course when they cannot predict the outcomes of their choices. They can anticipate future needs, articulate those needs to gather support and understanding, and adapt their responses, and that of the team, based on continuous learning 

Adaptive leadership is knowing what to do when you don't know what to do. Adaptive leaders learn through experimentation and manage the context, not the instruction set. They cultivate a diversity of views to generate a wealth of options. They lead with trust and respect and provide autonomy. 

Adaptive leaders are agile – they give the team the “why” and trust them to discover and deliver the “how.” Their teams have the autonomy to self-organise, create, and do the work.

The adaptive team aligns around a common goal, perceive what is happening outside the organization and respond accordingly. Sound decisions are made quickly, and teams experiment to discover what works and what doesn't. There is role fluidity, and anyone can change roles depending on what is required to succeed.

RESILIENCE

A force for change is a resilient workforce. I have been writing and working with organisations on workforce resilience before COVID was even a thing! Back in September 2019 I was interviewed by Brian Hampton, co-founder and CEO of Change Nerd Community about change management moving from resistance to change to resilience in the face of it. The video is here. In January 2020 I introduced the resilient superpowers need by leaders.

Unfortunately, with the pandemic the word ‘resilience’ came into common use and misuse.

Resilience is often described as the ability to bounce back after experiencing some setback or adversity. For me, resilience is about bouncing forward, having learned from the experience, and grown because of it. If we just keep bouncing back to the same place we were in before the setback, we make no progress.

This is where you feel my passion and my frustration 

Resilience is not built with an app to show gratitude; a mindfulness session; a yoga class; a sweat patch; a gym subscription; a happy or sad wristband; or mental health first-aiders. Whilst many of these things have value, on their own, they are point solutions.

Building resilience is achieved through an ongoing process that is holistic, contextual, and personalised.

For example, if my resilience is low due to a complex problem I am faced, a deadline and specific outcomes that need to be delivered, the mindfulness session is not going to help me. I need to pull on tools (that I call superpowers) that are contextual. I need superpowers such as problem solving, collaboration, experimenting and listening.

Mental health first-aiders are a vital resource …. but … if there is an environment in which mental health issues are not discussed due to fear of repercussion or reprisal, those first-aiders are not going to be utilised. The stigma around mental health must be removed for initiatives such as that to be successful.

Resilience is built when we have access to tools (or superpowers) that align with our objectives, address our current state of resilience, and address the challenges or adversities we are currently faced with.

When our leaders and their teams are resilient, they embrace constant and uncertain change.  They are truly agile, able to diverge and converge, adapt, and reposition at a pace never experienced before. They can handle the difficulties, demands and stress of unprecedented change.

The free downloads of the first six chapters of my books Unleash The Resiliator Within: A Handbook for Individuals and Unleash The Resiliator Within: A Handbook for Leaders are available on the homepage of my website.

COACHES

In my 2018 book “Game On! Change Is Constant – Tactics To Win When Leading Change Is Everyone’s Business” I introduced a soccer analogy for building an organisational-wide change management capability.

The winning trilogy is made up of managers, coaches, and players. The players on a soccer team do not resist change, they embrace it. Every game they play is different – the ground, the pitch, the weather, the supporters, the opposition, the tactics. Even during the game things can change – team composition, player positions, opposition tactics, red cards, and injuries.

The players embrace this constant state of change and say, “Game on!” This is the workforce we want, resilient despite what may be thrown at them.

The managers are our organisational change management capability, often one or two people tasked with managing the people side of change. When change is constant and increasing in speed, management of change cannot be left in the hands of a few. Change needs to be everyone’s business. The managers need to move away from being operational and tactical to becoming strategic and determining how they are going to position the organisation to thrive in the face of uncertain change. They create a plan to ensure the workforce is game fit.

One way in which they do this is to create a network of change coaches at every level of the organisation. Often called the change network, change agents, or change champions, but rarely enabled to be effective and furnished with little more than a lanyard that says, “I am a change champion.”

The managers, our change management professionals, truly enable the change coaches with provision of education, tools, and resources. The plan that the managers have created in conjunction with the coaches, is carried out by the coaches. The coaches provide feedback to the managers on the effectiveness of the plan and any changes that may be required. The coaches make sure the players (the workforce) are ready to play the game whatever it may look like.

EMPATHY

Everyone will experience change in different ways. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to managing the people side of change. Everyone has different perspectives, values and beliefs, different experiences, challenges, contexts, and circumstances. Therefore, we must create a workforce that is empathetic to each other.

We often say that being empathetic is walking a mile in another person’s shoes. I don’t think that is true. I believe that being empathetic is understanding how the other person feels like walking in their shoes.

When we truly understand each other, we can respond and support each other in the most appropriate manner. We operate with compassion and sensitivity. When we build relationships with our colleagues through empathy, we build trust.

We can help our people become more empathetic by developing their communication and active listening skills, raising awareness of biases, filters, and assumptions, and increasing emotional intelligence.

Empathy boosts productivity, fuels effective collaboration, and build strong relationships. It provides a common ground upon which teams can understand each other’s perspectives, gain trust, and move forward together in the face of constant and uncertain change.

Building empathy provides insights into employees’ reaction to change which can provide valuable feedback and inform changes in course direction if needed.

SUMMARY

When organisations make an intentional effort to create a workforce that understands constant and unforeseen change is the norm and is ready for it, there is a powerful competitive advantage.

Find the focus – the shared purpose of why we do what we do. Orientate leaders and their teams to be adaptive and agile. Build resilience through a holistic, contextual, and personalised process. Create an organisational-wide change management competency through managers and coaches. Lead with empathy to build strong relationships and face constant and uncertain change with shared understanding and compassion.