Employees See Death When You Change Their Routines

Dear Readers,

Today I would like to share this excellent article written by James R. Bailey and Jonathan Raelin*... a bit pushy but very interesting ...Let's see your reactions..

You may have had this experience: You alter an employee's routine or change the way he's evaluated, and you get a reaction that's far bigger and more negative than anything you expected.

What did you do wrong? Probably nothing except underestimate his fear of death.

Sounds strange, but a fascinating field of research known as terror management theory has shed light on the connection between people's reactions to change and their awareness of the big change that awaits us all.

The basic idea is that people go to great lengths to repress awareness of mortality. Studies show that we create three existential buffers to protect us from this knowledge: Consistency allows us to see the world as orderly, predictable, familiar, and safe. Standards of justice allow us to establish and enforce a code of what's good and fair. Culture imbues us with the sense that we have contributed to, and are participating in, a larger and enduring system of beliefs.
Anything that threatens these buffers exposes us to the looming reality of death. Change an employee's routine, and you've undermined the consistency barrier. Tell a salesperson he'll no longer be evaluated on the basis of revenue and now must hit certain cross-selling and teamwork targets, and you've attacked his standard of justice. Alter the company's mission, and you've pierced the culture buffer by requiring him to reconstruct his worldview.
Faced with any of these changes, an employee is likely to feel deeply threatened. The more people feel threatened, the more they dig in — or try to escape. One of us (Bailey) took the latter route when the university where he was working as a young professor merged its separate business schools. Faced with the prospect of new colleagues, new students, new campuses — and, most distressing, new promotion committees — he left the job within months.
Fortunately, there's a lot leaders can do to ease employees' unconscious fear of death. Be consistent — make sure employees are informed about, and trained in, new operational procedures well in advance of any change, allowing them to acclimate. If there are to be changes in performance measurement, painstakingly explain the shifts to illustrate their implications. If there's to be a rethinking of culture, create a detailed and nuanced justification for why beliefs and values need to change — culture shift is less threatening if it's honestly framed as a needed adaptation. And leaders should acknowledge that change equals loss. Otherwise they'll appear clueless.


Change is necessary, but so is an understanding of how it invades people's critical bulwarks against the awareness of mortality. We can't stave off death forever, but good leadership can temper the debilitating effects of being reminded of it at work.

*James R. Bailey is the Ave Tucker Professor of Leadership and chair of the Department of Management at the School of Business, George Washington University. Jonathan Raelin is an assistant professor at the University of Bath in the UK.

Image : Flirk from Stefan, Jean Le squelette

Engaging Employees

Successful implementation is greatly facilitated when the people carrying out the change are engaged in the process and buy in to the strategy and tactics.

Ideally, this should involve:

• Acceptance

• Understanding

• Willing participation

• Enthusiasm

Achieving this requires two-way communication: not just top-down dissemination of instructions and information, but also soliciting and listening to workforce questions, concerns, and suggestions. Attention should also be paid to building motivation and incentives into the change process, such as recognition and reward programs and links to compensation.
Finally, critical to the success of any change initiative is follow-up during and after implementation to evaluate the new processes and modify them if they are not having the intended impact on departments or individuals.

Employee Engagement Tools : Be open, and invite employee participation and communication.

1. Communicate (in multiple directions):
• Convey strategic goals, rationale, and overall direction of change.
• Communicate constantly about what is different and how it affects people
• Communicate about links to corporate culture and other systems.
• Solicit feedback.
• Use multiple communication methods: Web sites, newsletters, focus groups, town hall meetings, information centers, and the like.

2. Think globally:
• Conduct surveys and interviews to determine employee views and needs.
• Obtain early input about impact on employees and their roles and functions.

3. Act locally:
• Facilitate effectiveness of local leaders and build trust within units.
• Create employee-driven teams.
• Reorganize work assignments effectively and equitably.

4. Provide motivation and incentives:
• Link implementation to objectives, compensation, HR practices.
• Establish recognition and reward systems.
• Empower employees in the change process.

5. Follow-up:

• Conduct surveys to assess successes, hurdles, and employee engagement. 

• Respond to employee suggestions and concerns.

Source: The conference Board

Image Flickr

Tips for identifying Change Agents...

After we spoke about change resister, it is fair enough to discover Change Agent ...

1. Find out who people listen to. Change agents lead with the power of their ideas. But be warned : these may not be employees with formal authority to lead.
2. Be alert to people who think 'otherwise'. Change Agent are not satisfayed with things 'as they are'.
3. Take a close look at new employees who have come from outside the circle of traditional competitors. They may not be infected with the same mindset as everyone else.
4. Look for people with unsual training or experience. Chance are she sees the world through a different lens.

Who are the Change resisters... and how to identify them ?

The Change resisters will either drag their feet or actively attempt to undermine your effort...

You can identify potentiel resisters by undermining where and how change will create pain or loss in the organisation. Once you have identify them, there are several things you can do to neutralize their resistance or make them active participants. These includes : explaining the urgent need to change, describing how change will produce benefits for them, and finding new ways in which they can contribute. People who do not respond to these efforts should should be moved out of your unit...

Photo -TazX - Flickr

Change readiness : Self Diagnosis

Do a little assesment of your own organization.

Consider how it has approach change in the past and how it is approaching any current activities.

Then score it using the brief diagnostic test, using a 1-5 scale ( 1= strongly disagree, 5 strongly agree).

Our organization...                                                                                                                         

1. Mobilise Energy and Commitment to change through joint diagnosis of business problems
2. Develop a shared vision of how to organise and manage for competitiveness
3. Identifies leadership
4. Focuses on results, not on activities
5. Spread changes to other units without pushing it from the top
6. Institutionalizes success through formal policies, systems, and structures
7. Monitor and adjust startegies in response to problems in the change process

How does your organisation fare on these parameters? A score of 3 or less in any category points to serious weakness that you'll want to identify and correct.

Source: Surviving change, Harvard Business press - Photo Dasha_K, Flickr

Meet the Ninja : managing changes...

 Dear readers,

Change management is a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams and organisations from a current state to a desired future state. As one of the most exciting challenges leaders will face, Padraig Hyland explains how getting change management right is critical to leadership success.

In this program, you will find out:

* What the different kinds of change management transformations are

* Why change management is so critical

* How to manage change successfully


Enjoy !! Funny and very accurate ...

As ever, I am intererested in your comments !

Dear Readers,

Today, I will focus on the preparation of the communication activities.

Action 1. Perform a stakeholder analysis

First of all, your change team will have to prepare a stakeholder survey. It will help you to understand and manage stakeholder expectations, assess ownership and commitment to the change journey at various point of the project life cycle, influence attitudes as much as possible to maximise the chances of the success of the project, validate and check that ownership commitment levels are aligned with where the project is in the life cycle, manage the approved change initiatives and incentives at the project level.

Practically, you need to do the following:

• Create a questionnaire ( if you need examples, just ask me)
• Plan questionnaire administration cycles, tool to be used and population targeted
• Launch the questionnaire and analyse feedback. This will be your basic to go to next steps
• Organise workshops with the management to dicuss main result and identify corresponding action plan.

Dear readers,

In the coming post I will focus on Communication during Change project. As a matter of fact, during this period, it is very important to develop a specific communication.
As you may know, large-scale changes impact people in a different way... and create a drop in performance.

• The implementation of a new project often sees a drop in business and individual performance


• Depending on how you manage the change process, will determine how deep your organisation will dip into the "valley of despairs"


• It is possible to minimize the time it takes to navigate through the changes and return to productivity-but it requires a comprehensic change programme
  
• By successfully managing the changes you can accelerate the delivery of business benefits and optimize overall business performance

Change Management in 3 phases !

Managing Change follows a simple 3 step process. Here are the different you need to follow:

Phase 1: Preparing for Change
- Define your change Management strategy
- Set up your Change Management team
- Develop your sponsorship model

Phase 2 : Managing Change
- Develop Change Management Plan
- Take actions and implement Plan

Phase 3: Evaluating and reinforcing Change
- Collect and analyse feedback
- Analyse Gap
- Manage resistance
- Implement corrective action
- Celebrate success!

Do you think I have missed out any Phases? Is there a pre-step or a fourth step? I would be interested to here your thoughts on this.

Image: Flickr, Change, Gilad Benari

Are your managers able to become Change Agent ?

Managers are important allies in times of change. They have the proximity to and relationships with employees that are critical for building support and navigating resistance in times of change.

But many managers are not being provided the skills and tools they need to become change agent. As a matter of fact being a great manager and being a great change leader are two different things. Managers must first be on board with a change before they can lead their direct reports through the change.

Here are some tips to develop your manager as Change Agent:

1. Get them on board - managers have to go through their own change process before supporting their direct reports.
2. Explain them clearly what you expect from them.
3. Build competencies - "leading change" is a competency that can be developed
4. Provide tools - including change methodology, impact assessment template, roles description..
5. Provide support - help managers succeed at leading change

Image : Flickr Time for change, David Reece

Change resistance? Understand why …

Resistance is an inevitable response to any major change. Individuals naturally rush to defend the status quo if they feel their security or statuses are threatened.

Here are the major reasons why managers and employees resist change…

The top-reasons for managers’ resistance
- Lost of power
- Overload
- Lack awareness of need
- Unprepared to operate in the future state
- Fear of uncertainty

The top-reasons for employees’ resistance
- Lack awareness of need
- Fear of job loss
- Lack of the required skills or knowledge
- Comfort with Status quo
- Must do more with less

So, before any change action, think about why your people would resist to change.. and prepare your action plan!

Sources: Thanks to Isabelle & Guillaume

Image: Flickr, alshepmcr