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Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business: Why Traditional Change Management Is No Longer Enough
Let’s face it: the traditional way we think about change management is no longer enough. Most businesses endure a state of constant change. The need for change management used to trigger when there was a major transition like restructuring, M&A, or significant business pivots. There would be a period or time of chaos, after which the change management would eventually return the business to a more stable status quo. But, that isn’t reality anymore for most businesses. Let’s explore what actually works in this episode. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:
- Build a culture of innovation instead of managing toward stability
- Resetting what “success” looks like
- What to look for before judging a team as resistant to change
- Personal brand ties back in
- How resistance to change can unfairly brand strong performers
And as always, if you need help in building your Strategic Counsel, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: forthright-people.com/.
Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:
Show Notes
- Why Traditional Change Management Is No Longer Enough
- [0:01] Welcome to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business
- [00:57] Change is now a continuous state, not a discrete event with a start and stop
- [01:53] Why traditional tactics (stabilizing emotion, new processes) backfire when applied to constant change
- [03:49] Stoke curiosity, adopt test-and-learn, build a culture of innovation instead of managing toward stability
- [07:44] The paradox: constant change doesn’t have to mean constant chaos
- [09:42] Change management targets downside avoidance, change leadership targets resilience
- [11:06] Three principles for building resilience: constant learning from failure, not overinvesting in one direction, rewarding people for taking swings
- [13:52] Team accountability over individual blame, and leaders owning outcomes when directed risks don’t pan out
- [16:40] Resetting what “success” looks like
- [19:46] Leading through constant change requires a different leadership style than managing an event
- [21:21] New characteristics to pull forward: fluidity, curiosity, inquisitiveness, and vigilance (vs. structure, diligence, firmness)
- [23:42] Leaders admitting they don’t have all the answers builds trust in uncertainty
- [26:24] Important caveat: this isn’t a free-for-all
- [27:19] “Change management” implies a problem exists; change leadership doesn’t carry that framing
- [28:44] How resistance to change can unfairly brand strong performers and skew decisions like restructuring
- [31:09] Before judging a team as “resistant to change,” leaders must honestly assess whether they’ve built a culture of resilience
- [32:04] Personal Brand ties back in
- [32:55] Recap: change is continuous, goals differ, leadership style must shift, and “change leadership” reframes the problem itself
- Make sure to follow Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts
- Learn more at forthright-people.com/ and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn
What is Strategic Counsel?
Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.
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Transcript
Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.
00:01
Welcome to the Strategic Counsel by Forthright Business podcast. If you’re looking for honest, direct and unconventional conversations on how to successfully lead and operate in business, you are in the right place. In our discussions, we push on the status quo and traditional modes of thinking to reveal a fresh perspective. This unlocks opportunity for you, your team and your business. Now let’s get to it.
00:29
Welcome to the Strategic Counsel podcast. I am Anne Candido. And I am April Martini. And today we’re going to talk about change management and more specifically why the traditional way we think about change management is no longer enough when most businesses endure a state of constant change. So the need for change management used to trigger when there was like a major transition, like restructuring of the entire business or a merger and acquisition or significant business pivots.
00:57
There would be a period of time of chaos which everybody would endure, but then the change management would eventually return the business back to a more stable status quo. But that isn’t reality anymore for most businesses. Reality now is like constant change, which unfortunately can lead to state of constant chaos if not careful. Yes, so when change is constant, it’s no longer enough to just manage it because in all honesty, it’s not going away anymore.
01:24
It’s something that leaders need to lead through. And this is ultimately done by building the capability within their cultures and teams to accept change as a norm versus an anomaly. So more of an everyday thing. And this really requires leaders to pull forward different personal brand characteristics than they would if they were managing through a temporary situation. And we’ll get into that more today. Yeah. I mean, so this is going to be what this episode is focused on. And we’re going to get into all the reasons why traditional change management is not
01:53
no longer enough, but as always in our episodes, we’re going to also talk about what to do about it. So we’re not going to just leave you hanging. That’s right. All right. So the first reason why traditional change management is no longer enough is because for most businesses, change is a continuous state versus just an event. So this is what we were talking about in the intro. So when there’s an event, like we talked about, like a restructuring or an MNA or some sort of pivot, there’s generally a defined start and stop point.
02:23
And traditionally these situations, the change management focus on that the short term needs to get the organization over that hump or transform it through that hump. It would be about things like the escalating and stabilizing emotion that always ensues when you have some level of change like this or instilling interim processes or procedures to gonna help bridge that gap or starting to acclimate to what’s now new.
02:49
But when change is continuous, this approach can actually create unintended side effects. So stabilizing emotion on a long-term basis can lead to apathetic behavior because then nobody’s allowed to express any emotion about anything, right? Or new processes or procedures will start to create chaos because you’re implementing them on such a rapid timeline that people just start to like, don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing, when they’re supposed to be doing it or how they’re supposed to be doing it.
03:19
And in this environment of constant change, there’s always something new. So there’s generally like little time to really acclimate. So these traditional methods, which can still work from an event standpoint, just are not no longer enough in this like environment of constant change. So the question always is, so how do you approach this then? How do you like lead through the state of constant change? And really here you do the opposite. Great, I know that sounds kind of like what
03:49
What are you guys talking about? But like just bear with me for a second. I’ll explain. So instead of like stabilizing the emotion and driving the apathy, you actually want to stoke emotion for continuous curiosity, right? That just gets the mindset into, there is always going to be something new to learn. There’s always going to be something that’s kind of changing or something that’s going on. So the brain automatically is a little bit more resistant to that.
04:15
constant complacency and it’s always constantly thinking, oh, what’s next? What’s new? Okay. Next, you instill a model of testing and learning. I you hear us talk about this all the time, but in a state of constant change, we just don’t know what we don’t know. So we have to start somewhere. So this allows us to kind of go forward in a state of uncertainty and allows us to feel comfortable with taking a little bit of risk. So you establish a culture of innovation, which we just did an episode on. So
04:41
Go in here that episode with Dr. Victoria Mensch, and we talk about what it means to actually have an innovative culture, which is not just exercising tools. It’s actually a process in the mindset of the way that you think about innovation. So when you think about all these things together, then you’re able to now lead through the uncertainty, lead through the change versus just managing the change.
05:05
Yes. And so I’m going to talk about the chaos side of all of this. And Anne’s prompted me with some counterpoints to make here, people. So I had some homework on this episode. How the sausage is made. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I’m just letting people know, you know. That’s kind of fun. So anyway, the point here is
05:28
Right, we said before that living in a constant state of uncertainty can bring its own chaos. And I think what you just heard Anne set up is that would be true if we were still thinking about change management in that traditional way that we talked about before. So meaning that we are saying, okay, there’s a ramp up period and it’s gonna get better and then we’ll come back down and we’ll be more normal.
05:54
And we’ll go back to the way we were, we’ll go back to the emotion as the way that it was. And the issue with that, that you heard her say, is that things are constantly changing. And so that mindset shift that needs to happen needs to be led by the leader. And when that is done, and even, mean, I was thinking about it before this episode, really, we probably shouldn’t be talking in these organizations about the fact that it’s in constant change once we’ve set it up for that.
06:22
And I think Anne talked about some things that you need to do to rethink how things work, like stoking emotion for constant curiosity, testing and learning, culture of innovation, right? These are all things that should become the new reality of the organization. So it doesn’t feel like change in that traditional definition where you’re kind of like, quote unquote, waiting for it to end.
06:48
And to address the chaos part really specifically, I was thinking through several examples just through my agency career of when we would have major shakeups or changes, right? And I think actually the chaos came because it felt so jarring that this was happening. And so then all those things happen, heightened emotion, people start freaking out. They suddenly forget how to do their jobs. So then everything becomes chaotic.
07:17
versus if you can shift the organization to embrace just this new way of working, I think really is the expectation. And the leader has the ability to have the vision, own it, and then lead the people and inspire through it. That’s where that chaos goes away or calms down or doesn’t happen at all if you get it right. Yeah, I think, you know, it’s the interesting, it’s a paradox that says the traditional paradox is
07:44
If there is constant change, there’s constant chaos. Right. But the paradox that you need to hold in your mind is there can be constant change that doesn’t have to have chaos associated with them. Right. And the key to flipping that narrative is what you said, April, which is like having the different mindset of like, this is the way that we operate. It’s not it’s a it’s a it’s a way of the business. And in that case, then you acclimate people to that. So you hire people.
08:14
who can thrive in that environment. You reward people and we’re going to talk about that in a little bit for how to operate in that environment. And it becomes just the way, the culture of the business. So now you can say, happens if somebody is just not inclined for that, but they’re really a talented person? Well, then you’re to have to kind of see if this is an environment that aligns with their personal brand or not. mean, those are things that you have to kind of be to be determined, but
08:43
The whole flip of this is that the paradox isn’t that change equals chaos. It’s that you can have change, but it doesn’t have to actually lead to chaos. Yes. And I think that fortunately or unfortunately, this is the new way of the world, which you set up in the beginning, right? So there aren’t a whole lot of options for folks to seek out the traditional way.
09:12
And I mean, I’m making a massive blanket statement, but if companies and individuals within those companies are high achievers that want to move forward, this is the way that organizations are going to be in the future. So getting on board is the way to continue to progress in my mind. And when I think about, you know, I mentioned the agency examples, the individuals and companies within that space specifically that have been able to continue and do well.
09:42
look at change like this, not in that traditional roller coaster format that I mentioned. Yeah, right. Exactly. Which leads to the next point of why traditional change management is no longer enough is because the goals are different. So, Ava, this is where I think you were heading is when you’re applying traditional change management protocol, the primary hope is to eliminate some level of downside of whatever event is occurring. So you don’t want people to leave the company. You’re quite quitting.
10:12
disgruntled reactions. That’s really what change management is set up to do is to help to stabilize the organization as it’s going through this, this time of unrest or quote unquote, again, chaos. And no one helps to avoid these things on a regular basis. The goal of leading an organization through constant change is actually resilience. That is the key here. This is like the new like mindset when you’re thinking about holding that paradox.
10:37
So resilience is generating, people have confidence that they can recover without irrevocable harm. In other words, if they’re gonna fall off the horse, they’re not gonna be like irreparably damaged and they can feel comfortable getting back on the horse. And it’s responsibility of the leader to create this environment. And there’s fundamental principles that leaders who actively and successfully do this, they pull upon. And that is there is a constant state of learning and growth.
11:06
especially from failure. So failures aren’t something that didn’t necessarily be feared. They’re definitely something that we mitigated, but we learn through our failures and we grow through our failures. And we just have this mindset of our continually learning, understanding, growing, trying to get to the next level, trying to understand what the world is going to be bringing us now and in the future. Also, they don’t overly invest in any one direction. So they keep an open mind.
11:33
So, I mean, this was a very traditional thing that happened at P &G on the other side, which is when people started to align with what they believe was the right answer or what they believed was their passion, their passion area, it was the only solution, right? It was the only thing that they could like, they put the blinders on, it’s the only thing that they kind of worked on. And then if it didn’t go well or the project got canceled, all of a sudden the integrity of like what they were doing with just like,
12:02
demoralize them to the point of like, oh, you know, it felt personal at that point. They killed my project. They killed my like, what my avenue was that I was looking at. They killed my idea, but really they killed the idea. They killed the project. And this is like a really hard one because you want people to have passion and you want them, you want to fuel their energy into doing good work.
12:26
but it can’t be reliant on the choice of the decision or that avenue you’re taking because that can change at any time. So in order to overcome that, the third principle is that you reward people for taking swings. All right, so this gets them out of the mindset that it’s only one swing and I have to make that swing and that swing has to be a grand slam and that’s all I get. You reward them for taking these multiple swings because like I said, there might be so many different options that
12:56
when you’re trying to evaluate performance, you may not actually even get there at that point in time. So you have to reward based on other things. And so you have to figure out what those other things are in order to get them in the mindset that like, okay, it’s not just my performance on this one path that matters. It’s all these other things that are reinforcing the culture of change. Like if it’s bringing new ideas to the table on a regular basis, again, it’s taking more swing. So those are just some examples of how do you kind of start the
13:24
formulate a reward system around something that is not just performance based. It gets people in that mindset of, okay, I’m just gonna buckle down, I’m gonna do my thing and I’m gonna do it really well and that’s gonna be my one path to success. Yeah, and a couple other ones came up for me as I was thinking about this. One is assigning team accountability versus calling out individuals. So I do love the one about rewarding people for taking swings. And I think that that is
13:52
positive reinforcement for sure, especially when you have some of those hard chargers that you can just see they’re gonna get excited about this and they’re gonna go do it, right? But on the other side of that, I’ve seen it work really well where you kind of put everybody together and it does a couple of things. One, it mitigates and kind of takes down that singular responsibility, but then it also builds capability again through the lens of this new world of working.
14:21
because when there is a lot of change, working on things together can be a really good way to problem solve deeper and quicker in the long run. And so that’s one piece. And then the second one is as the leader being the accountable party at the end of the day, when things don’t go according to plan or well. so making sure that teams understand that, look, for this new culture to thrive, I realize we need to take chances.
14:49
and you already said about learning, especially from failures, but also the teams and the individuals aren’t gonna be penalized because the directive from the leader was to take those chances. And so making sure that they not only, not only you say that, but in those instances, you’re very clear that that is what is happening. I am taking the responsibility for this piece.
15:13
Okay, now let’s move on. What did we learn from this? Or I understand that this was considered a quote unquote failure, but remember we’re gonna learn from failure. So what are we gonna change next time? That sort of leadership that then gets people really comfortable and believing in the fact that it’s okay to fail because obviously as humans, that’s not our natural inclination, right? The other point I wanted to make here is Ann talked earlier about ambivalence or people not having a passion for what they do and
15:42
the type of people we talked about, and I was kind of heading down this path, I’m glad I didn’t preempt myself, but is finding the people that really want to live in this state and do this work and really thrive in it. that is really, this is another part of the leader, is setting up people to understand where their role sits in the organization and why it is important, and then empowering them to be able to
16:11
be autonomous enough in making decisions and being curious and learning and doing all these new things that they feel the passion and the vigor and the wanting to be a part of something. It’s resetting what success looks like, which is what we were kind of talking about from a reward standpoint. Cause when you were saying that, what I was thinking in my head was, you know, if somebody is inclined to always want to have like the idea that everybody goes forward with.
16:40
And that’s how they feel rewarded and successful, which is kind of like that more of that narrow minded point of view of like the idea we choose today may not be, might not even be relevant tomorrow kind of thing. You get rewarded for how many ideas you put forth. Right. So it’s a different way of kind of thinking about it. Now you always have to kind of go back and recheck with the person to make sure their personal brand can accommodate with this.
17:09
new expectation now is you just don’t like pretend that that’s going to be rewarding to them and expect that that’s going to be worrying to them if it’s not. But it does help you kind of tease up and reframe things a bit so that people can get really excited about ideas. If that’s really something that they’re get excited about. But the way that they’re getting excited by ideas is different. Yes, I think that’s exactly right. And that I think is that reset that we were talking about where
17:39
the leader is in charge of setting up this culture, but then also helping each individual understand. And I guess I should have said how their role is now different in the organization and the importance of it. And what that looks like and helping them get comfortable enough with it. And I think your point too is well taken of like the specific examples are always super helpful, right? Anytime you’re enacting any kind of change, it’s like.
18:04
Even someone who is a super high level strategic thinker, if it feels foreign to the way that they’ve been working and what they’re responsible for every day, if you can give them more of those soundbite smaller tactical things to get them started, it will help connect the dots and shift the mindset. And explain the why, right? Explain why this is important and acclimate them into this constant state of change. And that becomes the practice. then
18:33
over time, people get more comfortable with it. And so that’s the other thing, it’s like being very careful not to like knee jerk your way out of it, but start to, like you said, kind of give them little pieces that allow them to acclimate to the new way that it’s going, they’re expected to operate in this world of constant change. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, we say all the time, right? Like I said it before, people don’t like change.
18:59
And on the other side of that is the hardest thing then to change is human behavior. And when you’re doing it at scale, it’s even harder because you have individuals that make up that group of people. So you just have to have patience and give it the time and attention it needs. And remembering, like I was telling a client the other day, was like, you’re going to have to babysit for a little bit. No, that’s not what we’re doing long-term, but there has to be a level of handholding because we are fundamentally changing how the organization works. Right. And so it’s that like,
19:29
everything from they need to hear it seven to 10 times to the specific of what you’re saying, to leading them down the path, to checking in all of those things and making sure that you give the time and space for it to take hold. Yeah, I think that’s a really good point and reinforces the next one about why traditional change management is no longer enough and that it requires a different leadership style. And when managing through an event, as we talked about, a leader will generally call upon certain personal brand characteristics like structure.
19:57
Like making sure everything’s very, very structured. Um, and with that diligence to making sure you’re going through the process, because as we said, it’s a, be a very emotional state. And so you need to make sure that you have the diligence to go through the process in a way that is efficient, productive. And you have to maintain some level of being like firm about the fact that, okay, this is definitely something that’s very tangible. And that often requires sometimes leaving the emotions at the door, which
20:26
can feel very unhuman, but when we’re going through change management, in an event, there’s a lot of hard things that you have to do a lot of times. And in order to be able to get through that, you have to leave your emotions at the door and be able to provide that really like tangible firm structure that then allows people to go through this process in a way that is objective.
20:54
So you can get to the other end, right? Because remember, we’re kind of like trekking through the Alps, if you will, trying to get from point A to point B in a very snowy and treacherous environment, but we see that there is a destination. But when you’re leading through constant change, and that’s what we’re gonna call it, gonna call it change leadership, a leader will generally call upon different personal brand characteristics like fluidity.
21:21
Like making sure that the environment is conducive to allowing that fluid movement of change that there is not like hard edges and lots of blacks and whites. The curiosity we talked about, like making sure that you’re fostering that emotion of curiosity because that piques people’s openness to invite in new things. Inquisitive, which is kind of like a curiosity, but it’s the why question. It’s like continuously like, okay, well,
21:48
how can we do that better? What will allow us to optimize? How do we like establish an innovative culture so that we can always be at the forefront of whatever is coming to us from an industry standpoint, from an environment standpoint, from a world standpoint, so that we can get out ahead of it and we can capitalize on it and we can be the first to the market on it and all those sorts of things that people really want to hang their hat on. And then vigilance, which me and April talk about all the time is like, you can’t micromanage
22:18
any world that’s constantly changing. You just don’t have that level of control. So you have to establish practices of vigilance, being able to be proactive, being able to be a bit visionary, and then being able then to set up the established structure that you’re able to have like the testing and learning and all those things are things that we’ve talked about, which allow you to be vigilant without having to have the whole system be controlled and be controlled by you.
22:44
And I think it’s really important to remember here that when we talk about personal brand and we talk about what that means to show up as a leader, remember there isn’t like one specific formula. We just kind of gave you some specific personal brand characteristics that a lot of leaders tend to pull up, but it’s really the experience of you and that making sure that experience of you is what your team needs is what is truly the intersection of success here. So we gave you some examples. If you were like,
23:13
I’m not, you know, naturally fluid person call upon something else that provides some level of that ability to be able to manage ambiguity or something to that effect. You pick whatever it is. Everybody has something within them and they might have to kind of practice it a little bit and they might have to like dust it off a little bit, you know, in order to like call it to the forefront, but it’s in you. You just have to go deep sometimes to get it. Yeah. And the other piece here that occurred to me is vulnerability.
23:42
Oh, yes. And I think and I’m not just listing another characteristic just because like I had just said, you have to do the work on your personal brand to figure out what it even is and then layer this on to say, OK, and then which ones do I flex or dust off or pull forward or whatever. But I think one of the things that gets missed and I think part of this is because historically with change management, but in general, there was this approach to leadership that was.
24:08
things you outlined in the first part, right? Structure, diligence, firmness, no emotion, right? I think that script has completely flipped with the expectation of change and the way that it needs to work for the future because there is uncertainty in that every day. And so I think there needs to be vulnerability on the side of the leader to
24:32
help people understand that we’re not always gonna know what the right answer is, which is why we’re gonna test and learn and fail and all these things. And then also being accessible for their teams in a way that the teams can then express concern. And I’m always a big fan of saying like, I’m not saying that you flip completely the other direction, meaning.
24:58
Everyone gets to have feelings meetings every day. The broken records keep coming back with the same concerns, know, all of that, like that becomes vetting criteria for who’s gonna make it honestly. But what I mean is like, it goes back to that taking the time and the space and giving it what it needs. The leader needs to show up and model the fact that we’re creating a bunch of change and we know there are things we don’t know. And then the acceptance of the concerns from the team.
25:26
and being able to have those conversations and receive them and then make them productive in order to bring people along, but also so people see like the leader doesn’t have all the answers either. Nobody does. And so that’s why it’s so important to be able to lean into this and make it a way of working or a way of life in the organization. But I just think that vulnerability piece is huge. I think that’s a really good point. I think you may, I want to build on another point you’re making is that
25:55
We’re not advocating for a free for all. I that’s not what this is. So we’re, it’s a different environment, but the environment still has operating principles. Yes. The environment still has rules of engagement. All right. It’s just in a different context. So you will have, in this case, you will have, um, operating principles and rules of engagement for how do you introduce new ideas? How do you vet new ideas? How you decide which new ideas you’re going to go forward with.
26:24
It’s not just like, hey, bro, I’m playing you just like, hey, any day at any moment, somebody could come up with an idea and we’re just going to go do that. And we’re going to abandon everything else we got going on. That’s not what we’re saying. It’s just a different environment. It’s a different culture. It’s a different way of thinking so that you can be more open and more flexible to the changing environment. But it doesn’t mean that it’s a free for all. Right. Exactly right. OK. Hopefully everybody heard that.
26:51
because I could get on my tide box for that one, but I think I’ll let that go for now. I was going to say if any of my clients heard it was a free for all, they would be like, what is happening? All right. So the fourth and final point for why traditional change management is no longer enough is change management implies there’s actually a problem. So again, that’s why we like change leadership, not just so it sounds because it sounds nice and, you know, kitschy and memorable, but because it actually evokes what
27:19
the actual intent is because as we mentioned earlier, we evoke change management, we expect there to be some sort of pushback to the change. And April mentioned this earlier, the reason why that happens is because generally people are reacting to a culture that isn’t comfortable with change. So they’ve gotten complacent, they’ve gotten into their systems, they’ve gotten into their processes, they’re used to a certain way of operating. So when change comes, it’s like,
27:47
Oh yes, the world’s on fire, right? It’s just all kind of like, you know, coming to pieces and I’m overly dramatic, but I challenge anybody to tell me that there isn’t at least several people when change like that happens, no matter what level of change, they don’t say that their earth is like, you know, totally like kind of coming to Armageddon, right? So of course, as April said, nature is that when you’re not used to change, you’re going to have these kinds of reactions.
28:16
And that can inadvertently create tensions. And especially if people are having a lot of emotional responses to what’s going on. And that can be small or big. And what have tends to happen through this process, and it’s definitely happened to multiple really strong people that I know strong performers is that when we kind of get to that stage of we don’t like change, we start resisting to change and we start getting labeled as that as resistant to change and that
28:44
usually leads to bad decisions because as people are looking to restructure and downsize or whatever that or even upsize or whatever that next moment is in a change management event, those kinds of things kind of weigh into those decisions. And, but I want everybody to kind of know here is that the change isn’t the problem. It’s in reality that many leaders have never built that capability in organizations to flow through the change. Like we keep talking about, which
29:12
why all of this is so critical, it’s so needed in this world of constant change. Yeah, and I think that going back to your point about bad decisions and my previous point about make it more about the team versus the individual, this is where I think it gets a little bit tricky. so it becomes like that resistance then completely changes the perception of that person or those people.
29:42
And then it becomes sometimes that foregone conclusion because one of the things we’re always preaching to clients is, you know, what got you here may not get you there, right? And there is a, we say that with a, need to look at everybody objectively and we need to see like how people are reacting and are they going to be open to this and do they have that sort of like inherent curious aptitude, all of those things, right? But where it can go wrong is when people aren’t following any sort of
30:10
process, like we said, or they don’t have the operating principles and rules of engagement. So everything becomes very subjective. And then people get perceived as quote unquote, squeaky wheels. Right. And then that’s where those decisions become subjective. Right. So we kind of forget all the good things that person brings to the table and the fact that they could potentially be in a bad moment because of something the organization is doing. We don’t do that. So instead we set, we just put them on the list of
30:40
foregone conclusions. Right. And then that becomes a foregone conclusion. When in actually the leadership has been established, that culture of change and they too are not either ready for it, have adapted to it or believe in it or I mean, so that I think what we’re saying is before you judge whether or not your team, your organization, the individuals are quote unquote resisting change,
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really consider how well you have built that culture to be adaptable and resilient to change. And if you’re really doing change leadership or if you’re just fighting fires as they come up. I mean, like I said, like even though we talk about change management in the context of big events, if you’re using change management as a way to get through very like even smaller events, but they’re happening all the time.
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it’s the same impact. So you have to really look at the mindset and make sure, oh, am I trying to change manage my way through this? I’m trying to get from a start to a stop and hoping everything gets stabilized. Or am I really thinking about the fact, you know, listen, we’re not living in a stabilized world. I need to change the way that I’m thinking about this so that my organization, my team, my people,
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can have that resiliency that’s needed in order to be able to accommodate the kind of change that’s gonna be coming on regular basis. You have to be very honest with yourself. Well, and this is where your personal brand comes back in. Right. Right. Because we always say that in all of these moments in our careers, we should go back to our personal brand. And if we choose the right characteristics and flex them appropriately, that’s when we show up consistently and authentically for our people.
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And that experience of you over time becomes something that they want to be led from because it’s comfort in a constant state of change. They know what to expect as things are happening from you, even though they don’t always know what the next change or answer is gonna be. Right. I think that’s a really, really good point. All right. Let me just summarize why traditional change management is no longer enough and then what to do about it. So…
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As we started, for most businesses, change is a continuous state versus just an event. So it requires you to change your mindset and think about the fact that in this continuous state of change, I need to lead through it versus expecting there’s going to be a start-stop-stabilize, which likely is not going to ever happen. Right. Especially if you’re in a business that is constantly wanting to be at the forefront of innovation.
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Right. Also, the goals are different. Remember, we talked about the fact that, you know, change management is usually evoked when you’re trying to manage the downside. But when you’re leading through change, you’re trying to kind of create more of that resilient environment. And so the goals are very, very different. So that requires, as we talked about in the third point, a different exercise or a different activation of your personal brand in order to be able to be an effective leader for your people.
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be able to lead through change in a way that’s gonna be productive and lead to success. And then also, just remember change management implies there’s a problem, but change leadership does not. mean, we said this is a constant state. And so it really isn’t the change that’s the problem, it’s the way that we have established the culture and how they see change and how they are stuck in their own ways, which drives that complacency and then
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can kind of cause some of that tension if when change occurs. So just be honest with yourself about what kind of environment you have. And if you’ve naturally implied that change is being something that there is a problem because that sends the wrong message to your team, your people, your organization. All right, with that, we’ll remind you guys to…
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Buy our book on Amazon, The Power of Your Personal Brand, a playbook for struggling middle managers who want to do big things. We’ll go into a lot more on personal brand and you can use this as a context or a filter for how you’re thinking through that. You can get a link through our website or you can go directly to Amazon or you can actually buy it at our local Cincinnati bookstore, Joseph-Beth. And with that, we encourage you to take at least one powerful insight you heard and put it into practice because remember strategic counsel is only effective if you put it into action.
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Did we spark something with this episode that you want to talk about further? Reach out to us through our website, ForthRight-People.com. We can help you customize what you have heard to move your business and make sure to follow or subscribe to Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast platform!