Are your teams contributing to or creating barriers to new change initiatives in your organization? We all know the importance of organizational change management. Because our global economy changes so rapidly, initiating and managing change has become the norm for businesses to keep their competitive advantage.
“Your success in life isn‘t based on your ability to simply change. It is based on your ability to change faster than your competition, customers and business.” ~ Mark Sanborn, author
What is the change/teamwork connection? Teams are made of people…from the C-level executive team to front line teams. Change alters the way people work which may create anxiety, disappointment, and even fear. A recent benchmark study revealed the top three greatest obstacles to change initiatives were 1) Employee and staff resistance, 2) Middle-management resistance, and 3) Poor executive sponsorship. They key to successful change initiatives therefore, is to focus on teamwork in every level of the organization.
A well-planned change management program includes the change/teamwork connection. See if you can recognize these symptoms in your teams:
- Trust — Team members have fears around the change but are embarrassed to discuss them with others. Solution: Build vulnerability based trust within each of your teams.
- Conflict — Team members keep opinions to themselves and don‘t express disagreement about the change during meetings. Solution: Develop skills on how to constructively and openly express conflict.
- Commitment — Team members are confused concerning their role in the change initiative and fail to support the change. Solution: Ensure clarity and buy-in are present during every team decision.
- Accountability — Team members miss important change management deadlines and deliverables. Solution: Teach feedback skills to team members including both giving and receiving feedback.
- Results — Team members are focused on personal goals instead of collective team goals regarding the change. Solution: Make successful implementation of the change initiative a team based goal.
Some of you may have recognized the five areas above from The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team program based on the work of author Patrick Lencioni. Deborah Avrin is an authorized distributor of this program. To discuss how we can partner together contact us at info@ManagementSkillsInc.com or call 972 881-5282.