What the Most Change-Ready Organizations Do Differently
By Laura Gramling, President, EnSpark Consulting
Read more about our organizational performance services here.
How do you make organizational change stick?
With new conversations that inspire and inform everyone in the organization about what matters now.
When there is a shift in the organization’s strategy and aspirations, we need to address why these shifts are important and how the shifts impact priorities.
New strategies will not last if how work is accomplished and managed isn’t align.
Conversations about new aspirations will disappear without structures to reinforce desired changes.
Keys to effective change is evaluating and reinventing organizational structures and systems to support the desired future throughout the organization.
At their best, organizational structures and systems enable employees to work collaboratively and effectively to achieve an organization’s mission and goals. From organizational charts to performance reviews to communications, we need to assess if these systems, as they are currently designed, will facilitate the desired changes, or if they need to be altered or reinvented.
Real Change Assessment
| Organizational System | Strategic Questions |
| Organizational Chart | Does our current organizational structure make sense given our new aspirations? Discuss leadership accountability, information sharing, teamwork, decision making, etc. |
| Workflow | Do our current workflows support how to work collaboratively and effectively? What helpful mechanisms will support staff collaboration? |
| Performance Reviews | Does our current performance review process measure and reward the new behaviors and mindsets we are seeking from everyone? |
| Rewards & Recognition Programs | Does the way we currently reward and recognize individuals and teams align with the change initiatives? |
| Training & Development | Do we have the right mix of training, coaching and development programs to build the skills, knowledge and abilities of our staff? |
| Communications | Do we have a change communications plan in place? Are we transparent and clear about what matters, how we are changing and why? Do we have multiple and safe ways for staff to provide feedback and input? |
| Technology | Do our current technology systems support the new actions and workflows required? |
With an assessment completed, you can map out what needs to alter or be invented to support the new future. These conversations should involve multiple levels and groups throughout the organization.
Engaging staff with meaningful opportunities to contribute to the organization’s future direction smartly builds support and commitment for the change as it occurs. The assessment process becomes a change management tool to identify gaps between the “as-is” and “to-be” environments, and builds staff readiness to fuel what’s next.
X-Factor for Success – Impact of Your Organizational Culture and Leadership on Real Change
Assessing and reinventing structures and systems to best support organizational change is foundational. Without that, the new strategies and aspirations will not last.
Your organizational culture must also be a match for the new changes.
7 Leadership Competencies to Master
Inspiring a new narrative about what possible, and what’s next for the organization
Being clear and transparent about what matters most and why
Remaining accountable for ensuring all staff are engaged and contributing their best
Creating an environment of high-trust and high-performance
Deep understanding that adaptability, reliability and accountability starts with you
Balancing commitment to the new changes (“this will happen”) vs. being too prescriptive (“must be done this way”)
Empowering staff to contribute to the day-to-day shifts
How we treat each other and what values are espoused vs what is done vs what is rewarded needs to be consistent for the desired changes to last. For example, when there is a disconnect between what is espoused and what is rewarded, apathy and distrust sets in. Staff will look to the leaders for what really matters and act accordingly.
Too many change efforts or mixed messages from leadership will lead to change fatigue.
Here again, staff will respond with the least amount of effort. While the new aspirations could be ambitious and require many aspects of organizational life to execute, leaders must be consistency clear about priorities to sustain change efforts.
In short, over the long term, leadership must set the tone for the importance the change.
Sustainable change requires leadership, organizational structures and systems and culture to be in alignment. And to collectively inspire the rest of the organization to be part of the new conversation.
Our work with leadership teams focuses on practical, long-term, sustainable change at all levels of the organization. Read more about our organizational performance services here.