Set Up Organizational Support System
You need to create an entire system for your change to work. Some elements support change, whether on a behavioral level or an organizational level.
- New experiences: provide challenging experiences. Allow employees to experience meaningful challenges as they experience positively emotional charging experiences.
- New understanding: offer exposure to new ideas and models that allow employees to see the benefits of your requested change. Hence, giving them the motive to flex their behaviors and change accordingly
- Self Reflection: there need to be some points of self-reflection. Offer a time where employees are given time and opportunity to reflect on their behaviors, understand their inner driving forces. In addition, show them that they can make the change. This will give them the willingness to strive.
- Choice: Allow autonomy. People act better when they are given a choice.
- Model Trust: Change is instilled in much solid ground when employees trust those adopting the change. The more trust there is, the faster change is adopted. If you give someone feedback and ask them to change their behavior, they probably won’t if they don’t trust you. The same goes for adopting new policies or new systems.
- Safety and Compassion: Change is not easy to adopt. Whether it’s a behavioral change or adopting new ways of working, overcoming old ways is not easy. Hence, provide safety for people to make mistakes and relapse. Offer a safe environment that fosters compassion and empathy.
- Caring Relationships: Foster strong relationships. Employees who are closely knit together are likely to find a safety net that allows them to adopt changes and make mistakes without the fear of judgment.
- Emotional courage: foster awareness and freedom of self-expression. Change comes with lots of anger and frustration. Train employees into being aware of their emotions and their impact. Allow them to express their feelings, then teach them how to regulate them
- Self-Witnessing: Make sure that through awareness, employees can witness themselves and look at their current behavior and impact. Perceive themselves changing and notice the internal process taking place.
- Practice: Foster an environment where employees can practice and apply necessary new skills and behaviors without being scared.
The era of disruption requires the workplace to go through lots of changes. Hence, nothing can be accomplished without employees implementing the necessary changes and jumping on board. It is definitely not an easy game to play. Yet, mastering it brings in new possibilities and opportunities that make an organization a leader within the industry and, in fact, the leader of the industry. The difference is a wide array of benefits that starts with profit margins and encompasses much more. Hence, the challenge is worth it.
For more about this topic, download our latest book "Taming The Storms Of Disruption" for FREE:
