Is your organization Change CAPABLE?

One thing is for certain, change is constant.  We have heard that for years, but I believe it is more prevalent in today’s business climate than ever before.  Look at Retail, everyone is trying to figure out customer engagement, how do we engage with the “new” customer and their buying habits?  How do we KNOW the customer and what they want?  While I believe that everyone knows that change is constant, I wonder how many of you are truly prepared.  How resilient are you to change? How does this show up in your personal behaviors of those within your organization? 

I see many organizations preparing their people for change through certain “workstreams” supporting a large initiative, like an ERP implementation.  This is change management that we all know and love.  But when the initiative is over, are we more change capable as a competency? 

I believe the NEW “initiative” if you will, is CHANGE.  How do we prepare ourselves to be change capable no matter what the circumstance?  Perhaps several of your leadership team has resigned?  How will you be resilient and continue to lead & motivate your people through the change in leadership and not go into the “valley” of despair, panic & leave?  How does change leadership (at all levels) become stealth in our everyday efforts -  that it’s just part of who we are and how we perform?

Performing at this level is MUCH easier said than done.  It’s a process – a journey. Imagine how much MORE you can drive performance, increase your bottom line and increase customer engagement if you were a change capable organization?  People ask me all the time, why do change initiatives fail? The #1 answer is leadership.    While they may have the BEST intentions in mind, leaders continually fall short in LEADING CHANGE and leading by example.  Not just talking the talk, but walking the talk.  They have NO idea the influence they have over the entire organization.  How can we teach them to continually use that influence in a positive way?  Many don’t understand HOW to do this.  “MBWA” (Management by Walking Around) is as old as “Happy Associates are Productive Associates” and yet I would argue these are very effective ways leadership can lead change and drive engagement.  It really is about getting specific about how this SHOWS up and teaching leaders what good change leadership LOOKS like (and feels like). 

Why is this important?  Well, let’s see, here are a few reasons companies should pay attention:

·       750 billion dollars is lost every year in productivity from disengagement from associates.

·       85% of all change initiatives either fail or never gain their ROI because of lack of adoption. 

·       Turnover caused by frustration and lack of leadership increases exponentially, and you lose your Hi-Po’s, not your underperforming talent.   

·       Failed initiatives fuel disengagement amongst top employees

·       Change initiatives take up to 50% more time, resources, and money if not “change capable”

Whether you are going through a large-scale ERP implementation, a significant business process change, upsizing, downsizing, rightsizing, merger’s, complete cultural transformation, a change capability plan is critical to its success.  I’ve always been baffled by companies who spend millions on software, but hardly anything on how to prepare your users to adopt it!   It will cost your organization MUCH more to do-over the implementation because your users don’t know how to effectively operate in the “new world”.  Many organizations put their people through Prosci “certification”.  They attend training and take a test.  While this is great education/templates, if it is not applied and supported at an all levels, it is very difficult to create a change capable organization.  It needs to be seen, talked about and promoted continually.  Everyone needs to be aligned on its importance to the performance of the organization.

Some leaders believe people will change and that “Just because I say so” makes it so.  That doesn’t work!  You can’t threaten people to adopt and you will lose engagement along the way.  There is not a prescriptive way on how to help a cultural transformation for each business, but thankfully we have several strategies in our tool box to help each client reach the best results.  We customize the approach to ensure that every level in the organization is change capable and it’s a competency that you are just known for.  Therefore, we at C4G have chosen our company tagline to be “We help companies perform while they transform”.    It’s just that important to us and we are passionate about serving our customers in this capacity. 

So, I ask you, can you or your organization AFFORD to NOT BE change capable?  Can you withstand constant change and continue to perform?   Let us know if we can help your company prepare for ANY change coming your way. 

Beth Thomas

As CEO of Change 4 Growth, Beth is responsible for the overall success of the consulting business. Beth has 25 years of experience specializing in transformational change, leadership, Learning & Development, Culture Shaping and Employee Engagement.
Prior to launching Change 4 Growth, Beth founded Sequent Consulting where she built the business for 12 successful years before renaming, purchasing and launching the business Change 4 Growth. She has now joined the ranks of a Women Owned Business.

Prior to Sequent, Beth’s experience was a Senior Vice President at JP Morgan Change where she led the retail organization’s Learning & Change Management across the country in support of their branch network. In addition, Beth served as the Head of Knowledge & Service Management for all Limited Brands, where she led Organizational Change, Learning & Service Management activities.
In addition to many volunteer groups and boards, she is involved with Beth is a globally recognized thought leader in Organizational Change, Leadership and Employee Engagement. Her work has been recognized all over the world and has been a trusted advisor to many Fortune 500 companies. She is a leading executive coach in helping leaders lead change and foster an engaging culture.

Beth is a frequent global motivational speaker, strategic facilitator and her professional work has been recognized with national awards and in several globally circulated magazines, newsletters and blogs. Beth is a contributing author on four books, On Demand Learning (Darin Harley), Implementing eLearning (Jay Cross and Lance Dublin), Learning Rants, Raves and Reflections (Elliott Masie), Lies About Learning (Larry Israelite) and most recently the author of her own books, POWERED BY HAPPY relating to her years of experience in shaping productive cultures and Employee Engagement.