How to manage your team through change

5 reasons why communication is at the core of all successful transitions

When moving your business through change, clear communication is everything. It is essential to the ongoing success of your business that you communicate well with your customer. Equally, communication with your team must be clear, consistent and confident.

Now, more than ever, your team needs you to manage and communicate effectively. Whether you are moving through a planned restructure, rapidly transitioning to working from home, or your business has been forced to ‘pivot’ in an ever-changing marketplace, there are simple ways to ensure that you can lead your team to success.

1. Communication sets the tone

Positive transitions require positive language. It is important that leaders frame the context of change in an optimistic tone. Leaders need to stay positive, focused and confident throughout the process of organisational change.

Clear communication across the organisation will help everyone understand the changes that need to be made. You must communicate why the changes need to be made, and how any changes will be implemented. At Newberry Paterson, we use a tool called CPQQRT. It doesn’t roll off the tongue, but it does provide clarity in your communication and prepares your team for what they need to do. This tool provides context (the why), purpose (the outcome) and sets parameters (the how). This tool helps you set your people and your business on the path to success.

2. Communication helps to engage stakeholders

Collaboration is key. Identify the key stakeholders in your organisation who will provide the greatest influence and support of the change. Within any organisation there are certain individuals who are particularly influential. They are change-makers and ‘cultural ambassadors’. Getting them to advocate and support the change process is critical to success.

A positive culture can boost productivity and profitability. It is really important to get engagement early in the process. Ask for ideas and concerns - and ask across every level of the organisation. Invite a dialogue.

Advocates of change will help you move forward. However, the key to successful change is the way you communicate, not only with the enthusiastic supporters, but also with those who are more inclined to resist change.

Identifying the detractors or what we call the ‘cultural-terrorists’ and engage with them. This will bolster the success rate of any change. An influential leader realises that in the most part people are well intended and those that resist are seeing the risks presented by the change. Edward de Bono ‘black hat thinking’ is useful to use in the process to ensure caution is applied and to look for what may have been missed. The black hat identifies risk. It is used for critical judgement. It is one of the most powerful hats in the six. Look out for the black hat thinkers, the people that naturally go to why something can’t be done. Engage these people in the process. They will become your biggest advocates for change.

3. Communication helps you manage relationships

Checking in with your team in a consistent manner can help you to keep your team engaged with the process. A foundational principle of change is building trust. Communicating regular updates and checking in with your team will help you build that trust. If you are managing the relationship well, it will be more likely that your team members will be on board with changes.

Understanding your business’s capacity for change is important. Try and understand individual capabilities and frame your changes with these parameters in mind. Your goals need to be realistic.

Additionally, don’t overlook change fatigue. Too many changes at once can overwhelm and exhaust your employees. Ask for feedback. It is critical that you monitor any potential fatigue within your business. Change for change sake diminishes the impact and the value of important changes, and will disengage your team.

4. Communication facilitates deeper alignment with your team

Foster close and growing relationships with your team. Ask about their ‘why.’ What makes them want to contribute? Why are they here? Why is their work important to them? Perhaps you’ll get a glimpse of what motivates them - and it may reconnect them with their own sense of purpose.

Don’t leave these sorts of questions until performance management reviews. Make them part of an ongoing discussion. We have seen this work extremely well at planning day sessions that then evolve into success walls, which in turn provide an added benefit of a collective ‘why’ for the team. This is powerful stuff as it unifies your team. Let your team members know that you want to help them achieve their goals. It’s about people. If their goals are aligned with the vision of your organisation, you’ll be bound for success.

Set goals and objectives together - good communication at this stage can create a healthy relationship between a leader and their team members. Remind your team that they will be accountable for reaching their goals. More importantly, assure them that you will equip them with the authority and tools required to succeed.

5. Communication helps you celebrate achievements

Make changes that are easy to action. Break larger tasks into smaller tasks to improve the chances of implementation. Measure success at each stage. This builds a high performing culture.

Setting specific, measurable, achievable targets can build momentum within a business. These wins can generate positivity and create a flow-on effect of success after success. Share these achievements across the organisation. Recognise specific and individual achievements - talk about them whenever you can. Congratulate team members for victories. Even better, get team members to congratulate each other, and call out the positive results of their workmates.

Reaching a milestone feels good. Make sure you take time to celebrate success with your team.

Keep talking

In a marketplace filled with uncertainty, and with ever-increasing rates of innovation and competition, you need to set measurable targets for your organisation to rise up to the challenges you are facing.

Your communication process can make all the difference. If you want to create meaningful changes in your business, keep talking to your team (your advocates and your critics). Don’t close the dialogue down. Remember - ‘it’s about people’.