In part one of our ‘leading through change’ two-part series, we explained what we meant by leaders leading through change, and what we have seen as effective change leadership behaviours.

In this second blog, we dive into our collective toolbox to focus on tools, models and techniques to lead through change, as well as explain what successful leaders keep at the forefront as they steer their organisations through change. Once again, we canvassed the thoughts of our friends Andy Brown from Engage Group and Pete Thomas from TEAMFIT, together with our in-house Change specialists Jess Herniman and Annette Frem.  

Key tools, models and techniques

Effective leadership through change requires a strategic approach that is built on a variety of tools, models and techniques coming from the world of psychology, neuroscience, systems thinking and sociology.

By implementing this approach, organisations can successfully equip their leaders to navigate the organisation through change and increase the likelihood of sustained adoption.

For ease we have broken our toolbox into four key categories:

1. Manage the emotional impact of the change on you and your people

Key to leading change is to understand the emotional responses and psychological transitions that both leaders themselves and their teams will experience as part of a change and transformation.

There are many a few models that we believe are helpful for leaders to be familiar with and understand as part of leading change e.g. the ADKAR change model (consists of five sequential steps and actions, providing a structured and practical approach to support individuals through change) , The Kübler-Ross Change Curve (originally developed to understand stages of grief but has shown valuable to understand emotions related to change in general) and the Bridges Transition Model (identifies the three stages an individual experiences during change.)

Each model brings its own strengths but it’s our experience that they provide strong correlations when used in conjunction to build your change strategy.

Combined they put emphasis on:

• Individuals go through stages and why it’s important to address individual experiences during change.
• The emotional and psychological aspects of change, and stresses the need for effective communication and support throughout the change process.

By understanding and integrating this knowledge in the thinking and planning around managing change, it allows leaders to better support individuals through the complexities of change, ensuring a smoother and more successful transition.

2. Strategic stakeholder management and storytelling

Robust stakeholder management and a comprehensive comms and engagement strategy sits at the heart of any successful change. Here are examples of powerful tools to use:

• Storytelling: Use storytelling to link the overarching change messaging to the overall vision, mission, values and business strategy help teams see how the change aligns with their individual and collective goals, building a sense of shared purpose.
• Stakeholder management: Ensure true buy-in and advocacy through identifying key stakeholders and seek in-depth insights to their mindsets, needs, drivers and pain points – and a tailored plan for how to successfully manage and engage them.
• Voice of the Customer: Encourage open dialogue and feedback to address concerns and build trust. Proactively seek out feedback from your customers in the organisation; How do they perceive the change, what’s working for them and what potentially doesn’t.

3. Setting your leaders up for success

Most leaders are coming to terms with change at the same time as they are expected to lead the change. The following tools are vital to ensure leaders are both equipped and support through change:

• Role modelling: Encourage leaders to agree on how they want to work together to lead the change and aligned and lead by example through demonstrating the desired behaviours.
• Coaching and mentoring: Provide ongoing support and guidance to support leaders to develop their own change coping abilities.
• Leadership training: Equip leaders with the skills and knowledge to effectively manage change through providing specific training in leading through change, managing resistance and coaching.
• Profiling: Use psychometric leadership assessments and profiling to help leaders understand and leverage their strengths and watch-outs better as a team, and use this knowledge to support each other and tailor their support to their employees during the change.

4. Setting your employees up for success

The success of any change or transformation is the adaptation to the new desired future by all employees and the following tools will help organisations with succeeding:

• Recognition and rewards: Include celebration of what have been achieved in the past to ease the move to the new, and recognise and reward employees for contributions to the change process.
• Team building activities: Change is likely to make employees feel isolated and alone with their feelings and potential confusion. Foster teamwork and collaboration to help teams share their feelings, innovate and try new things out.
• Employee pulse mechanisms: Gather feedback from employees and utilize AI to quickly and effectively identify trends in overall sentiment, needs, and concerns, enabling you to plan and tailor your change approach while establishing a baseline to demonstrate progress
• Change network: Identify your early adopters and others positive towards the change and give them the tools to collate sentiment and feedback from their peers on the ground and also be seen as a local force helping to translate the change into practice.

The strategic navigation points

One of the big challenges that we mentioned in our first blog was that leaders need to recognise that change is continuous, and their role in leading and enabling change is in effect about ensuring the organisation can meet their overall goals. As a result, leadership teams should see themselves as transformation teams, constantly thinking about evolving their organisation whilst ensuring it’s still performing today.

And whilst the leadership team might not be ‘running’ the technical part of any change programme they can successfully address this paradox by asking themselves the following questions and identifying metrics to track and mitigating impact:

How does it affect our people:

What do we need to consider and put in place to:

• ensure we don’t see a pro-longed drop in engagement levels?
• keep our best talent through the change?
• support employees if leaving the business?
• support employees staying that might feel guilt/survivor syndrome?

How does it affect our customers:

What do we need to consider and put in place to:

• ensure we don’t see a drop in productivity?
• ensure we don’t see a change in speed of delivery?
• ensure we don’t see a drop in customer satisfaction scores?
• we keep innovation front of mind?

How does it affect our brand:

What do we need to consider and put in place to:

• ensure we minimise the risk of PR/SoMe coverage potentially damaging our consumer brand reputation?
• ensure we minimise the risk of PR/SoMe coverage potentially damaging our employer brand reputation?

How does it affect our finances:

What do we need to consider and put in place to:

• ensure we maintain current profitability and bottom line
• ensure we as a minimum retain current customers levels
• ensure we as a minimum retain current customers spending levels

Leading through change requires resourceful leaders who inspire to master strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, and effective communication. By understanding the principles of effective change leadership and implementing the appropriate strategies and tools, organisations will set themselves up for a successfully transformation and emerge stronger than ever.

This is part two of our ‘leading through change’ two-parts series– click here to read part one Leading through change: The art of steering a successful transformation.

Looking to get some support with your approach to leading through change or change management in general? Fill in the form below and tell us what your challenges are and we’d be happy to help.