Seven Key Steps to Leading Change

Seven Key Steps to Leading Change

Are things not really working as before? Are some of your efforts not giving that bang that they used to? Sometimes we are reluctant to admit that we no longer know the market as we used to and that it doesn’t respond as we grew accustomed to. This is not necessarily bad, actually this may be your greatest opportunity.  Life invite us to learn and reshape all the time. You are there to lead change, should you just choose to see it that way and take the chance. By taking that challenge positively and constructively you have an opportunity to shape your future and help others to shape theirs. My experience in global corporations around the world have taught me seven key steps to leading change to great results:

1.    See ahead of you

That’s a discipline. If your deck is already underwater, that is not exactly changing you have to do but swimming for your life. Have you ignored the smoke signs along the way? Well, it’s never too late to do something about it but, clearly, the best leaders are those who are able to listen, to read ahead of them and to act. There is learning offered to us all the time, are we listening though?  Visualizing and materializing opportunities ahead of the market is the key stuff of extraordinary leaders.

2.  Experiment

If you can afford a gradual change, that’s the way to go. I mean, if your boat is not sinking already, if your familiar cash cows are still milking, that may give you time to plan a gradual process to develop other business opportunities. Then get your best, most motivated, resilient and reliable people, and put them in charge of a pilot program. But please, give priority to your experiment by investing some of your prime time to follow up. There is a huge difference between delegating and relegating, usually that is precisely the difference between success and failure.

3.  Build support

No matter where you are in your organization’s cart, you won’t get too far if all you have is resistance around you. Be sure about this, where there is no support, there is resistance. That’s the default status. Identify your keep sponsors, peers and other stakeholders. Find out what may be in it for them, learn the best way to sell, negotiate and get them on your side.

4.  Rally people

There is no effective change without people. Here is the energy that will get you going. When you can see your desired future sparkling in their eyes, that’s when you are starting to get it. That may sound like a worn-out adage, but very true nonetheless, if you cannot convince your own people of the direction you want to follow, how can you possibly hope to convince your client? Let yourself and your entire team or organization experience the joy of learning and creating a future together.

5.  Clarify goals

Defining your goals may be the most difficult part of your endeavor, but very critical. You need to know exactly what you want to achieve, and carefully define the steps to get there. That will take some studious time. Then the desired end must be fixed in your mind, speech and behavior. Your goals must be clear, they must me known, they must be shared, they must be engaging and they must be methodically tracked.

Get your metrics, make sure that they are accurate, and follow up. But be very careful to only measure and follow up what is really relevant. Don’t waste energy with horse crap just because it looks serious and seems related to your goal. Yes, it will take discipline and effort, but you and your people must know where are you going and exactly how are you getting there.

6.  Make it count

Build energy by taking every effort to identify, celebrate and reward the behaviors that are taking your organization towards the aimed future. That will require you to first revise your reward systems, both formal and informal. You will be surprised to find that you may be paying for, or otherwise rewarding, behaviors that are actually moving you away from your goals. It happens all the time, I’ve seen it all the time. For example, is there any obscure criteria for promoting people to the wrong positions?  Or, are people afraid of bad consequences for doing non-traditional things? Or, are there stupid programs in place, stealing time and energy for something irrelevant?

When you get your culprits, that’s when you’ve got to be tough. Throw them out the window and don’t look back. I don’t mean firing people, not necessarily anyway. Most often it means getting rid of bad policies, procedures, traditions and habits. Local labor laws are often an obstacle, but I’ve seen creativity do wonders without breaking any laws.

Once you clear out your way of this junk, then you are free to create intelligent reward systems that actually builds energy towards your goals. It doesn’t need to cost you a fortune. I have learned that many of the most effective reward and recognition programs are very low cost. People need to be paid fairly, but they want to be recognized. Recognize the right behaviors and enforce zero tolerance towards deviations. To avoid de-energizing your organization, you want to be kind and patient towards honest mistakes, and use them as teaching opportunities, but don’t let them go unnoticed either.

Results is learning. You only know that you have mastered something once you achieved a positive result by doing it. Boy, does that build energy! Never, ever let a positive outcome go without being recognized and publicly celebrated. Positive results are guiding posts to you and to your people. Make them count. Make them widely known and reward them.

7.  Steer you ship

Managing change also means being flexible enough, and humble enough, to make course corrections, even sharp turns when necessary. Hopefully not too often, but that change of course happens to the best captains. Listening to people and maintaining an open communication at all levels, will help you stay abreast of what is going on. If you did your homework, you will have better chances to steer away from danger and avoid moving headlong to disaster. Scenarios can sometimes change very quickly and invalidate previous assumptions and you need to assimilate that and act promptly. A flexible plan is often the best survival strategy, as long as you keep your organization under control.

Conclusion

This, of course, is not my formula. Throughout my corporate life, I’ve seen some great leaders using these very steps, many times. I remember the CEO of a large service provider which, after some false steps in the marketplace, was struggling to grasp it. On the verge of losing his business, this leader decided to literally listen to what the front people had to say from their frontline experience. He was surprised, maybe a bit embarrassed by the feedback from the rank and files, but acted on it. He did something amazing, with a concept of market segmentation.  One of the results from this saga was that his direct reports are today great corporate leaders themselves. That was a formative experience to all of us.

May we all look at today’s turbulent world and perceive the opportunities to lead and positively shape what is going to come out of it.

Paulo J. Mottola de Oliveira

Speaker, Consultant and Mentor on Organizational Effectiveness

https://organizationalenergy.blogspot.com.br/

pjmo@live.ca