Growth is a healthy part of any organisation – it usually means business is going well, your customers like what you’re doing for them and your employees are happy. Successful fast growth however demands a thoughtful approach to making and managing changes. Change at any scale is fundamentally difficult for most people to process, and larger changes can have a negative and destabilising effect on productivity and employee engagement. These large changes could range from leadership transitions, withdrawing support from existing business lines or systems (or indeed investing in new ones), right up to acquiring and integrating new businesses and transforming your entire business operating model.
In this post I want to talk about organisational restructures, and successful change management approaches to minimise any negative impact. There is of course much more to an organisational restructure than just the people element (systems, processes, information sources) but for the purpose of this post that’s all I will focus on. Here are my top 5 tips for managing a successful re-organisation:
1. Start with the end in mind
Whether you’re a huge multinational, or an SME, it’s important that your staff understand the benefits that will come from the reorganisation. By “starting with the end”, I don’t mean, “starting with the org”. It’s a very common mistake to design an organisation (based on internal politics or gut feel beliefs about what will work) and then work backwards to plan out the business benefits. Have a clear view of the benefits you want to achieve at the start (better alignment between certain departments, better geographical coverage, more operationally cost effective etc) and design your org to best deliver them. If you can do this collaboratively with your senior managers, even better. Once that’s done, a crucial step is that you ensure you paint an inspiring picture for employees of what the benefits will mean for the business. It’s much easier to give something up if you’re working towards something better, and by giving employees a “vision postcard” of the future you can inspire greater motivation and get them bought into the change before it happens.
2. Focus on what is not changing, as well as what is
A common reaction to change is the feeling of loss. Even small losses – perhaps moving a department’s location so those staff will no longer be able to connect with others in the staff kitchen – can seem large to employees and should not be underestimated. It’s important when announcing an org change to focus on what the company does really well and what is being preserved, as well as what is being changed. This creates a sense of appreciation for staff members’ legacy and a sense of stability as they realise not everything will be different. Whilst it’s not good to dwell in the past, it’s important to be able to recognise that every organisational model has strengths and weaknesses, and not to throw out the old models’ strengths for the sake of it, as new managers typically tend to do in an attempt to make their mark.
3. Communicate, communicate, communicate
Begin communications with affected staff as early as possible – starting with the vision and reasons for change. It can be very useful to appoint a senior stakeholder (Senior Responsible Owner in Programme speak) to be the face of the change and advocate for it widely within the organisation. Change “Champions” within local communities or departments can also be an effective tool. The goal is to make your employees realise the imperative to change, and the benefits of doing so. The sooner you can do this before the change is due, the better, so that they feel they are part of the journey towards the change, rather than victims of it later down the line. Nobody likes to feel they’re the last to know something.
If it’s not appropriate to announce a change in advance (if people are being made redundant, for example) then at the least try a cascading briefings approach before the announcement date: speak with senior managers first, then other managers, then the affected staff. This helps to ensure leadership have at least some warning to prepare to support affected staff. Another thing I’ve found to be very useful is having an advance briefing with long-standing or trusted members of each community or office. It need only be a day or even a few hours in advance of the general announcement, but it helps create stability when you do announce the change more widely.
4. Empathise and keep your door open
The human response to change (as explained neatly in Kubler-Ross’s Change Curve) is virtually inevitable whether the change is big or small, whether it is a change at work or the loss of a loved one. It varies according to the size and nature of the change, the context, and the nature of the individual of course, but there will normally be some form of grieving process. To deny this will not be very helpful for the change management process. Instead – ensure you and the management team accept and acknowledge the loss and reiterate what will be retained and preserved, or what will be better in the new model. If staff are moving on to new roles, take a moment to celebrate their contributions and input. Being empathic during this time and receptive to feedback is very important. It could also be that employees have genuinely useful feedback that you can use to shape a more effective organisation. Make sure you continue to keep communication channels open to employees and schedule some post announcement follow up touch points to gather feedback and keep eyes and ears open for any negative feedback which could potentially escalate.
5. Review and refine
One big reason that changes fail to “take” is that leadership takes their eyes off the change too soon. Just because it’s been announced it doesn’t mean your work is done! You want to make sure that the changes, which have taken up time and money, yield the benefits you were expecting. Make sure that as well as employee feedback sessions you have benefits review sessions scheduled at appropriate junctures so you can make sure you are reaping the full rewards of all the time and effort that has been put in. The good work you have done earlier in the process with getting your employees engaged with the change should pay off here, as they should hopefully feel some ownership of realising the benefits. There may well be parts of your organisation that are not working as smoothly as they should – and that’s fine. This is the chance to refine and improve on the model now that you can see how it’s working, rather than a weakness of the original design. It should be noted that use of dedicated change management resource has been found to increase the rate of change success by 19%, according to an IBM study (2008). Ultimately the change management process you adopt for an organisational restructure will depend on the size of your business, the nature and scale of the changes, and your company’s risk appetite. Some companies are used to rapid and continuous change, so the impact on performance and productivity will be far less than in a company where change is slower and less common.
Kommentare