3 Things Every Leaders Should Know About Change


If you’re going to stay in the game, you have to learn to accommodate and benefit from increased change in the workplace.

From our vantage point of over two decades in the business of change management consulting, we have learned a lot. Here is what we have learned about the kind of attitude it takes to manage, not fear, organizational change.

It takes a readiness to:

  1. Welcome a wide variety of perspectives.
    If you only listen to the same old-same old, you will not be open to a different, and often better, way of approaching challenges. Refrain from forming an opinion until you have actively listened and fully understood the new approach from a relationship, culture, stakeholder, structure and information perspective.
  2. Ask questions that bring new thinking and new responses.
    Try shaking things up a bit. Instead of asking your team for their solution, ask them what they found most surprising as they worked on the problem…or what data they chose to ignore and why.
  3. Ignore the trees for the forest.
    Don’t get mired in the details. Look at the big picture for the direction to take. Be more attuned to patterns than specifics.  Organizational change is messy – keep pushing forward.

Then make little moves at a time to observe the results. A bit of experimentation along the way can help you tweak your final big move and be confident it’s the right one.