Leadership and Management

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How a Director Can Play a Pivotal Role in Organisational Change

By Christina Lattimer • May 19, 2014 - 11:10 am Organisational Change

As a Director or a senior

team member, you have a pivotal role in leading the way for change in your organisation.

You’ve set the strategic direction, and the project initiation is underway, your organisation is going through a huge change. There is an expectation from the majority of employees, stakeholders and customers that transformation is going to happen. You know it starts with you, but how can you personally do the right thing when navigating change?

Ghandi wasn’t wrong when he said words which have been condensed to the famous quote “be the change you want to see”. Walking and talking the change is required at every level of the organisation.

“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see what others do.” Ghandi

One of the most inspirational men I have ever met headed a large local authority. The changes he was overseeing were transformational and impactful. Knowing how difficult cultural change can be especially when the circumstances are challenging with job cuts and more being demanded from people, I asked him “How do you make sure your vision, values and outcomes are alive horizontally and vertically across your organisation. He replied “I have built a senior team who passionately shares our joint vision, and are willing to do what it takes to get there; whenever I hear anything which is contrary to our vision and values, or encounter a situation which is impacting results, I personally challenge it”. Wow, I thought, that’s a real commitment. What he said to me showed he was congruent with his values and lived them every day. As a Director in your organisation, there are two strands which you must pay attention to for change to be successful.

Turning strategic aspiration into operational reality

You must make sure that the strategic vision becomes alive through the operational processes and policies. There are three parts to this.

Know your organisational story

First of all you must know your organisational story off by heart. You must know where you have come from, where you are going and the difficulties you might face. Change does not happen without a flow, a resistance and transformation. You need to know and be able to tell your organisational story, as if it were a fact. If you don’t know your story or don’t really agree with it, there will be a mismatch in the change you want to make.

Implement and understand your holistic plan

You might have a project manager who is overseeing the change, but at Director level, it is your business to make sure it is joined up, inclusive, flexible and will make the change through the multi-dimensions of your organisation. Your plan must address the changes needed at all levels of the organisation. Depending on your own priorities you might feel some levels are more important than others, but do not fall into this trap. There is really no hierarchy in change, because at every level it impacts your employees, customers and stakeholders and in order to value them, you need to value the support they need at their level of the change process.

Commit to helping your employees at all levels through the change

Change is scary. The problem with change models, even though they acknowledge change involves emotions; without commitment from the senior team, dealing with fears and the human reaction can become part of the process, and can sometimes diminish the reality of the acute anxiety change can engender in people. It is important that as part of the change process, support is put in place to help employees through the change. Missing this step out might not mean the change won’t happen, but it might take much longer, and you might suffer more stress and casualties along the way.

Being the change you want to see

This second strand is all about you. As well as making sure you commit to and understand the change processes, as a Director and leader, you must be a demonstration of the change you want to see. There are three specific ways you can “be” the change.

The energy you bring to the change

is indeed showing us all that we are at the core of our being, radiating units of energy. We all know we cause an impact with our emotions. Just spend a night with a friend who is down in the dumps and it is energetic vibration in action. As a leading player in the organisation, it is essential that the energy you emit about the change is authentic, positive and believable.

Harbour great expectations about your employees

Our expectations, turn into our reality. This can be a bit of a stretch for some to believe, but that how we look at our world affects the way the world responds. The way to get the best out of your people during the change is to expect the best from them. Even if they are demonstrating resistance during the change, know this is just part of the process and doesn’t mean anything about them. Expect them to embrace process and succeed in the change.

Your personal credibility

Without a doubt change can bring out the worst in your employees and the resistance can be high. Time and time again, I have seen change become a source of conflict and resentment, when the . Being personally credible of course means walking the talk, talking the talk and being the values you want to see in your organisation. So there you have it, some of the ways senior people must play their part in the way change happens in the organisation. Do you have any other ways you think the top team should demonstrate commitment to change? Linked articles: 3 Steps to Harness the Power of the Mind for Organisational Transformation The 5 Step Blueprint Of Successful Organisational Change Organisational Change – Making the Best of Bad News Are You Awake To Change? 3 Reasons Why a Great Engagement Strategy Isn’t Enough

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3 Leadership Skills To Inspire Team Success

By Christina Lattimer • May 1, 2014 - 7:18 pm Leadership Development

3 Leadership skills

Leaders usually have a balancing act to perform, especially around how much they allow their team to contribute to organisational success, or how much they take upon their own shoulders. How well they harness the commitment, effort, skills and effectiveness of their team and how well they are able to let go and allow their team to take up the challenge and deliver, depends on how well they are able to set healthy parameters.

One of the most difficult dilemmas for a leader can be determining when they should let go and allow employees to either float their boat, or sink.

In order to do this well, leaders need to have three skills

A reciprocal and healthy balance of giving and taking
An ability to communicate their own boundaries and have a healthy respect for the boundaries of team members.
The courage to take and manage calculated risk.

Being able to apply boundaries in working relationships is essential for good decision making, although for many reasons some find difficult to do so. A mismatch of boundaries can, and does, create disharmony, distrust and demotivation inside and outside the team.

I remember a story about a CEO who was committed to a life changing cause and was respected by peers and stakeholders. He got good results mostly and where he didn’t, had a great handle on problems. What he didn’t realise of course was 75% of his team were slowly sliding off the deck, while the remainder were standing at his back cheering him on, watching him steer the boat.

This great man had such an extended sense of responsibility, he couldn’t see that by trying to control the whole ship, he was systematically dis-empowering his team one by one. He was wary of taking risks, giving over control or allowing his team to take some of the responsibility from him. His people skills left a lot to be desired.

There are many variations on this theme and it’s not a perfect art, so few people get it completely right. There have been many times I’ve dis-empowered my kids by making decisions for them. In a work situation, when the risk seemed too great I have been known to take over and override an employee’s decision; although I tried to do it kindly, it was not always perceived that way.

Sometimes a leader has to take a calculated risk, and this can mean letting people fall and suffer the consequences of that fall, in order to learn and grow. Those situations can be a tough call for a leader.

I heard from a team who had big problems because their leader “overdid” delegation. He was so focussed on what others should or must be responsible for, he left himself out of the equation. He didn’t gain the respect of his team, as they often felt overburdened and were wary of asking for help because the signals he was giving indicated he didn’t really want to be involved, although that wasn’t the case at all.

One of the most difficult issues is respecting role boundaries. Of course roles are meant to be fluid and let’s face it, we all must cross over role boundaries in order to get the job done. But there are times when crossing over such boundaries either masks poor performance, or muddies the water so much that account-abilities are confused. Good role boundaries are essential, with a suitable degree of flexibility, to fit different situations.

When to let go and when to keep steering can seem daunting. Much depends on a leader’s inner confidence and maturity. I have rarely worked with or for a leader who gets risk, responsibility and boundaries completely right. Being aware, checking understanding and exploring where boundaries lie is essential.

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The 5 Step Blueprint Of Successful Organisational Change

By Christina Lattimer • May 2, 2013 - 10:59 am Organisational Change

A Blueprint for Change

In my capacity as a Leadership and HR Consultant, I am mostly called in when a problem has been encountered or a change is needed. Consultancy is of course about understanding the problem, so a solution can be found. Because I understand that organisations have a personality just like people, the problem is always unique to that particular organisation. And so of course it follows, the solution is unique.

Over the years, I have developed a paradoxically, simple approach, to what can be perceived as complex organisational change. Using my expertise in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) coupled with systems thinking I help leaders get to the crux of the problem, and help them find organisational solutions quickly.

The 5 step process allows leaders to look at the change from a number of different perspectives; zoom in and zoom out; satisfy both intuitive/visionary and auditory/sensor preferences for taking in, assimilating and communicating information. It also encourages a holistic decision-making process which embraces heart and mind, or logic and feeling preferences.

The process in itself is a simple one, which helps maintain focus, although the dynamics within the process helps clarify complexities. The 5 step process can be used in any organisation to solve problems or to instigate change.

The 5 Step Blueprint

1. Where are you going?

There are usually three basic directions, and it’s important to find out exactly where the organisation wants to go and how it wants to travel. It is vital to determine at the very outset the clear drivers for change.

A moving towards or progression
A change of direction – a moving away from
An alignment to perform better

You may find that there is a combination of ways to move forward, but asking the question in this frame helps uncover what is motivating the change and develops the basis for the next step:

2. At What level does the change need to be made?

There are 6 basic levels these are linked to 6 logical levels of change used in NLP:

The purpose or the “Why” of the organisation
The Identity or the organisational brand
The level of values, beliefs or concepts of the organisation
Knowledge, skills and competencies
Behaviours and culture
Environment

While this can take some time to establish it is essential appropriate time is taken to identify the starting level. If your starting point is level one, then it is likely all remaining levels will be affected. If you start at level 4, depending on what that change involves, will determine whether any other levels are affected. The next step is:

3. How does the change affect each part of the organisation?

In addition to the logical levels above, change impacts each part of the whole. A successful change process will anticipate those impacts, consult on the detail, and make necessary adjustments ensuring the change is integrated across each identified impact. The level at which the change occurs will determine the scope and depth of the impact. Some impacts might be:

Relationships
Interdependencies such as linked projects or schemes of work
Policies
Processes
External partnerships and stakeholders
Resources
Customers

4. How will you know that the change is successful?

What exactly does success look like? Ways to frame this question can be:

Will the organisation be more profitable/deliver better products and or services?
How often, and with what method will this improvement be measured?
How will the customers/stakeholders/partners respond to change?
How will employees respond, what will they be doing differently?
What will the organisation look and feel like?
How will existing targets and results change?

5. How will the changes happen?

If the change is a one-off intervention, a programme or project approach may be beneficial. If it is more significant, then you may want to build the change into the strategic plan and build in outcomes and ownership accordingly. For a systematic approach, you need to consider the following elements to ensure success:

Who will own the change?
What is the governance around the change? (Where do accountabilities lie?)
How will the change be communicated?
Who will be consulted and when?
When will success be realised?

As you can see, change is only as complicated as you want it to be. Keeping it simple may not satisfy the more theoretical and analytical minds around, but cutting out complexity is the surest way to get results more quickly and in a way in which everyone understands.

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Are You Awake To Change?

By Christina Lattimer • April 25, 2013 - 11:28 am Organisational Change

Change has been quite a topic for me this week, both from a personal point of view and from some of my clients.

Change models are helpful and I have found with clients that any approach to change and therefore the preferred model, depends pretty much on the situation and the preference of the person wanting to instigate the change.

Standard models, like Kotter’s “8-Step Process for Leading Change” are effective and helpful, and for some are enough. I always find it helpful to illustrate Lewins “Force Field Theory of Change” when looking at resistance to change, although even setting out how behaviours and resistance will manifest, doesn’t usually prepare people for the actual experience of these phenomena when the process is underway.

Levels of change are best described in Bandler and Grinder’s which is for me one of the most helpful models, because it clearly describes the hierarchy of change.

There are many more models out there, so why is it then when change is happening, even when teams are aware of the Kubler-Ross change curve, does it often become so distasteful, stressful frightening and difficult? Is it simply because the experience of actually going through change is much messier than the models lead us to believe it will be?

Through years of experience of leading change and helping to lead change I have found some common factors which help to make the process of change much easier, less painful and less problematical. These factors I call AWAKE. I am not a big fan of acronyms but without any effort the five factors fit, so without apology I present them in this way, because you never know, thinking of AWAKE might help you to remember these factors the next time you are involved in a change, whether personal or work based.

The five factors are all about the energy which is brought to the change. It doesn’t matter which model is used, if the underlying energy isn’t right then the change will be more difficult; take longer and be riskier. I have broken the factors down as follows.

Attention

Attitude

Kindness

Energy

Attention

Any change needs to have attention. This is about the concentrated focus of the mind and the mind-set either in your personal life or your organisation. To achieve real successful change, the change must become the most important thing in the universe during the time it takes to initiate, implement and achieve the outcomes. It is akin to Kotter’s first step about creating urgency, but it is more than that. If you have several programmes, projects or changes going on at once, then the order of attention, priority and importance must be determined. If too much is going on, attention is diluted, the change is slower, and the impetus is lost.

It doesn’t matter if your change affects a team, an organisation, your family, or it is an individual change, like giving up smoking or moving house. As an individual you have different aspects to your personality just as much as there are different personalities in a collective change. For example if you want to give something up, then there are parts of your personality which don’t want to. If you want to change something in the organisation then there will be people who don’t want to. There will also be aspects of you, which do want the change, and people in the team who embrace change readily. The difficulties arise when opposing parts of yourself or people in the team become pitted against each other, even if this is in the short term, and this is when conflict arises.

If you recognise that when change occurs, all parts of the organisation (or all parts of you), need to be understood and listened to: Then conflict is understood and dealt with, and any potential for hidden or unconscious sabotage or resistance is lessened. Coming from the power of “We” takes a certain level of maturity because it needs the understanding that “we are all in it together”, “the sum parts make a whole”, and “everyone counts”. The stock phrase for this dynamic is that “we are changing, and we all count”.

Attitude

I would like to bet that instigators of change believe they have the right attitude because they fervently believe that they want the change, they know the change is for the better, it can benefit all. They have a vision and they understand deeply the benefits. Sometimes though, during the change, conscious or unconscious doubt becomes apparent. The doubt is not about whether the change is needed, it is about whether the change can actually be made. For individuals they may fear their own levels of resilience, or for leaders they may doubt the ability of some of their team to make it. The attitude to change must be one of “Can do”. It sounds simple I know, but that resistance if not uncovered right from the outset can slow down and sabotage change unwittingly.

Kindness

If any of you have gone through difficult or long-winded change which has proved stressful, combatant, or fraught with problems, then along the way you may have experienced the tensions and conflicts brought out the worst in everyone involved. If at the outset, you make one of the conditions of change to be kind to one another (or kind to yourself); the energy of the conflict, resistance or problem simply has to change. It might sound corny, but if you are talking about a particular problematic aspect or dealing with fears or resistance, to start off the interchange with “How can we remain kind in this situation?” just changes the dynamic.

Energy

The AWAKE model is all about the often unspoken energy which is brought to the process of change. To acknowledge the process of change as energy can be empowering, as it raises awareness. There are two further aspects of energy to consider:

Firstly, Newton’s 3^rd Law, “To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction: or the forces of two bodies on each other are always equal and are directed in opposite directions” and

Secondly, Ghandi’s often misquoted declaration; “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him”

If you are awake to change you will have a head start

What these mean in practice is: If you voice your frustration, or have low expectations about yourself or the people involved in the change then that becomes your experience. If you complain about others, then you are slowing down the change, because the energy you are emitting becomes part of the change process. Even though you might think others don’t notice, on the level of energy they know something isn’t quite right, and they will react accordingly.

So there you have it: Are you AWAKE when making change?

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3 Leadership Skills To Inspire Team Success

By Christina Lattimer • March 21, 2013 - 10:57 pm Employee Development

3 Leadership skills

One of the most difficult dilemmas for a leader can be determining when they should let go and allow employees to either float their boat, or sink.

In order to do this well, leaders need to have three skills

A reciprocal and healthy balance of giving and taking
An ability to communicate their own boundaries and have a healthy respect for the boundaries of team members.
The courage to take and manage calculated risk.

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7 Principles To Get An Immediate Return On Your Learning Investment

By Christina Lattimer • February 1, 2013 - 7:28 am Miscellaneous

There are many evaluation models and cost/benefit frameworks which attempt to determine the “worth” of learning and development in the workplace. Depending on the type of learning required, some models and frameworks are easier to apply than others. Sometimes even when applied, the expected outcomes and improvements have either not materialised or they have taken far longer than expected.

Even when the learning programme is excellent, it doesn’t always deliver results

A number of years ago, I worked with an organisation who had invested a great deal of employee time and financial resource into a learning and development programme, with frustratingly little result. A professional business consultancy had evaluated before and after, calculated a ROI which was a persuasive driver to buy in the proposed programme, but 18 months later, the expected benefits had simply not accrued.

The MD was totally frustrated; as the learning programme was polished, expert and inspirational. Employees were enthused, and bought into the concepts and the benefits of working in a different way. The formalised feedback on the training event was excellent. The business consultancy had done an amazing job. So what had gone wrong?

Improving knowledge, skills and behaviours doesn’t always mean better results

In another example, lack of effective leadership skills and behaviours had been identified as a big problem for this national organisation. It was decided to re-design the leadership skills framework and to develop a programme for all senior leaders. A set of behavioural standards were developed, and a methodology to measure changes was put in place. A coaching and mentoring framework was agreed along with monthly action learning meetings.

There was a new spring in the step of leaders across the organisation. They gave positive and enthusiastic feedback for the coaching and development programme.

When the 2^nd annual employee feedback survey showed less than a 1% improvement in perceptions of employees, alongside results with marginal improvements, they were dumbfounded.

Great learning programmes don’t always result in improvements, but they should

Those examples are simply two of hundreds I have seen, when learning and development has been brought into an organisation; the learning has been evaluated and the content and application has been faultless. The organisation is absolutely clear about the improvements they want to see. But yet, still, the expected results did not materialise.

Why is this? As you know there are many factors which impel or motivate people to change the way they do things, and learning new skills, behaviours, knowledge or even raising awareness is just one part of the equation.

When your business is buying in development interventions, you want to be able to see a real return on investment, otherwise why would you use precious financial resources on it? No one can completely guarantee a return on investment, but the chances of a return can be greatly improved, and more importantly you can pinpoint exactly why the return hasn’t been realised by introducing the following principles.

When I was asked to do some work for the organisation in the first example, the MD was frustrated that the learning he had bought in had not realised the outcomes he required, even though the learning providers had delivered the learning they had promised.

Seven simple principles

My first step was to establish the following 7 principles if I were going to take on the task of getting results:

A learning and development provider will facilitate a real return on investment in partnership with the commissioning organisation.
Learning must enable a measurable improvement or change by the learner.
The improvement or change must contribute to the overall outcomes for the organisation.
Each learner must develop a “call to action, or objective” where they are accountable for achieving the measurable improvement or change.
The organisation must enforce accountability, usually through their performance management system.
The achievement collectively of “calls to action, or objectives” will result in a measured outcome for the organisation.
“If it is not possible to set individuals a call to action or objective which aligns with overall business objectives, following learning then the commissioning organisation should consider whether development is actually needed.

I agreed to deliver a short refresher programme, with a pragmatic design. I explained unless the training included an accountable call to action for each employee, it would likely be unsuccessful once more, and so secured his agreement to establish accountability for achievement within the organisation.

We agreed at the end of the event, each employee would identify a work based objective to improve, abandon or shorten a process and to quantify the savings.

Improve customer service or increase customer satisfaction, with a measurable difference
Reduce the number and type of complaints
Create a measurable increase in quality

In a 6 month period, 95% of employees met objectives, outcomes were recorded and collectively it was calculated that almost £1 million had been saved up to that point as a direct result of achievement of the outcomes or objectives.

Not only were amazing results achieved, employees felt an increased sense of ownership of the success of the initiative. They had tangible evidence of their contribution and saw a real difference.

Incidentally, these principles will also work for individuals if you are thinking of buying in your own self-development programme. For the majority of learning, unless it translates into accountable action, then it might be a “nice to have” but not necessarily an activity which will create significant change

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The Steps to Organisational Change

By Guest Post • March 22, 2012 - 9:58 am Personal Development

Welcome to this weeks Guest Blogger. Paul Myers is the HR Manager for a local transport company. He has initiated significant change in his organisation and has managed to keep his staff on board. He is a people centric manager who has considered how to increase and harness employee engagement at every opportunity. Below he charts just one of the organisational changes he has led to transform the organisation.

The Steps to great organisational change

I moved into my current post as HR Manager 4 years ago. The company had at that time transferred from a deep cultured public sector organisation to the private sector. Invoking TUPE had meant the process had already involved a painstaking consultation period with trade unions. .

The organisation is complex. After the transfer, one of my objectives was the harmonisation of 28 shift patterns across 3 distinct teams, with varied terms and conditions linked to them.

The issues and reasons for harmonisation included.

Varying and different shift patterns being operated between three operational areas.
Not all shift patterns supported 24/7 working
New equipment meant a reduction of workforce and also a requirement for new skills.
Possible further reduction in workforce due to a new project.
Company commitment to minimising compulsory redundancies

Starting Consultation

The objective of the consultation was to mutually agree the harmonisation of the shift patterns, to agree one pattern for all. The consultation process was a time for all parties to gather and discuss the need for change as well as place suggestions for consideration, counter proposals and refinement. The objective was to mutually agree the way forward. The range of the consultation reflected the number of employees affected and the extent of change need to be implemented.

The outline of the consultation process was to:

Undertake consultation period with affected employees and their representatives.
Outline the need for change and timescales.
Set a period of time for suggestions of ideas, proposals and counter proposals
Reviewing and giving consideration to the proposals
Answering and addressing concerns and questions.
Agreeing the way forward.
Getting ready for change such as training and agreeing terms
Implementing change
Monitoring and reviewing the change.

Change Issues

Often with consultation and change programmes, it is difficult to get all parties and employees to agree to the changes in the working practices and terms of employment. If the changes had not been mutually agreed, an impasse may have resulted between the employees, their representatives and the company. If an impasse had resulted, then the organisation may have had to take the decision to invoke and enforce change. Whilst it is was hoped that an impasse was not reached, as long as the organisation had endeavoured to consult before enforcing change, this is likely to be valid with any employment tribunal.

The organisation launched the proposal for change for Economical, Technical, Operational (ETO) reasons. In these circumstances, when it can be proven that consideration has been given to all alternatives, or there has been refusal and objection to mutually agree the way forward, then the change is enforced by giving the contractual notice under the old terms of employment, advising and offering new terms of employment from a set date.

If reaching an impasse and enforcing change, the company may be at risk of breach of contract claims. This is as a result of the change and terminating the terms of employment, which exist. To defend such claims the organisation needed to prove the ETO reasons for change; that it had tried to implement due change on reasonable grounds; and that should the change not occur the business would suffer a severe detriment.

The organisation knew that at that time there was an increased risk of industrial action. This was to be avoided as well as was the leaking of any changes to the local press and media.

Achieving the Goal

Transparency with the Trade Union

I met with the union explained the plan we wished to peruse and set out our reasons. Also suggesting measures we could implement to effect the changes

Full staff Engagement

We stated our commitment to full staff engagement: Involving them fully in the decisions about their jobs to make it work

Accepted the need for disagreement

We used disagreement as a stepping stone to initiate full discussions to reach mutual agreement

The process for change

We started with staff meetings, which was a logistical nightmare due to 24/7 shifts patterns and getting the staff to participate in the meetings.

We worked in partnership with the union. We held meetings which were quite heated at times, although we were committed to coming to agreement.

Initially we reduced the 28 shift patterns down to 15, covering 24/7/365. A great deal of work then took place, evaluating salaries, allowances and leave entitlements. This information together with the advantages and disadvantages of each shift pattern were verified with the unions. .

We then conducted further meetings to discuss the various shift patterns to reduce the 15 to smaller number, to where we could then go into more detailed negotiations.

In the next stage we considered 3 different working patterns. We carried out further meetings to discuss the issues. The staff were asked to vote. One team was reluctant to agree and at that stage refused to reach agreement.

We initiated further discussions which revealed that the team identified a problem which meant that any of the patterns could result in a perceived detriment to their work/life balance. We suggested some slightly different terms and conditions which had a small cost but in the overall scheme was worth the investment.

Initially they refused to agree this renewed offer. We recognised however that we had been fair, transparent and given fair alternatives, so we advised them we had no option but to invoke an impasse and force change although we had been clear we had tried to avoid this throughout the process. We also suggested that we would remove the additional terms and conditions offered. At the eleventh hour the team agreed the newly offered terms and conditions.

Conclusion

We have now been working the shift patterns for 2 years, and they have been a great success. This is largely because we have continued with an open door policy with the staff and unions. As a result of the process we have successfully changed the culture in line with the current needs of the organisation.

The transparency of the process and the good employee relations built in that time helped in a subsequent change when the workforce was reduced by 52%, We had followed the same principles and feel we added the human factor into our HR practice, when dealing with those selected. During this time, we have also reduced sick absence from pre-transfer from 16% to a remarkable 0.8%.

I firmly believe to be effective in organisational change you must be open transparent and honest with employees and the trade unions to gain maximum effect.

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Paul began his career in the Infantry in the Army, He served 20 years in various locations and was discharged in 1992 at the rank of Warrant Officer

He commenced employment with his present employer in 1992. With no previous civilian experience, he started on the shop floor. He learned about the company and operations, and using his previous skills gained in the military and took the company through ISO 18001, 14001 and EMAS, gained all accreditations finally producing a integrated management system.

Prior to TUPE transfer on PFI he took the role on as HR Manager, responsible for delivering on the organisational change which involved reducing numbers and the reorganisation of the structure of the operational sections.

In 2 years staff numbers were reduced by 55% and all operational staff where on a one shift system. This was only achieved by being transparent with the unions and achieving maximum engagement with all staff.

He remains active in the ex military community he is trained as a welfare advice officer for SSAFA and The Royal British Legion

To achieve in HR he believes in putting the Human touch back into Human Resources, primarily effecting maximum engagement, transparency and fairness with all employees. He has dyslexia and this has never been a barrier to his success in life

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Organisational Change – Making the Best of Bad News

By Christina Lattimer • March 20, 2012 - 8:32 am Organisational Change

Its not the organisational change – its how you do it!

I recently held a workshop which had a section around organisational change and particularly redundancy. It’s obviously a big subject at the minute, and one which is exercising many managers and HR professionals.

What struck me about the difference within this workshop to those I had held before was that there was less discussion about the case for redundancy. There appeared a tacit acceptance that cutting back costs, and organisational change which may lead to redundancy was a way of life right now.

It got me thinking about changes which involved reductions or closures I had managed through in the past. Some initiated by me, and some which were out of my control, but I had to do the “dirty work” so to speak.

The psychological profile and change

Myers Briggs Type Indicator is a psychological profiling tool which helps people understand how they take in and process information and also how they make decisions. In the decision making arena some of us make decisions based on logical thinking and rationale, while some of us do so based on our feelings and the impact on people. It will come as no surprise to you that given my passion for people, I come into the latter category.

Well at a feedback session I held a few months ago, we got to talking about redundancy, and someone stated, “It’s no good looking at redundancy as thinking or feeling process, the process of redundancy is inherently one of logical thinking, so feeling people naturally feel uncomfortable”

So I pondered this statement, because I had been through numerous organisational changes, and actually had never felt uncomfortable with the process. So was my type indicator wrong? Was I not a true feeling type? Well no, of course not, that assumption would be too simplistic.

I realised that organisational change and reductions in numbers of staff in themselves wasn’t a big deal for me. Not because I don’t care about the people involved in the process and the impact on them. On the contrary, I realised it wasn’t a big deal for me, because I did care about the people involved and made sure I did everything I could to reduce or cushion the impact on my employees.

Now that’s not to say everyone I have managed through the process has been happy with what was happening. I am guessing there are very few of us who are threatened with potential or actual loss of their livelihood who would feel happy. But what can be done is to help them through the process.

Employee relations are key

With some managers and HR practitioners; employee relations in the context of organisational change especially reductions in staff or hours, is synonymous with the trade unions. But it is much more, and there are lots of great managers and practitioners out there who know this.

Yes, there is a process to be gone through and legislation and regulations to adhere to, but here are my top tips for a manager or HR professional who may be taking someone through any change which is going to impact adversely on their working life.

Give them the bad news straight. People have a remarkable capacity for accepting and processing bad news. What they don’t like is not knowing, or having to guess what the true picture might be.

Be abundantly clear about the drivers for change. If the change is imperative, then you will have good and sound reasons for it. Show that you have considered all options and that you have no choice but to go for it

Talk Adult – Adult. You are not responsible for their lives, but you have a responsibility for how you relate with them. Do not let any fingers of blame point at you or take on board any guilt. Likewise, treat people with dignity and respect.

Be Kind. Understand that everyone will take the news differently, and that is ok. Make sure you have support for those who may be affected most seriously and don’t compare the different ways people react.

Let them be negative. In fact encourage negativity, but do it in a structured setting where you can pivot the beliefs and thinking about the impact of the change into a positive focus.

Encourage them to face fears. By facing fears, people then turn their attention to solutions. If they never face their fear, fear will be the driving force and will sap their energy. Energy they can put into reskilling or finding alternative employment or other adjustments.

Let them talk as much as they need. Ask them how regularly they want to be updated, in what format and what will work best for them. Such time is never wasted. It is much better to be proactive with time, rather than let the time bomb of the rumour mill tick.

Celebrate their successes. Make them understand the vital contribution they make, the unique skill set they have at their disposal and help them identify how to make the most of the experiences they have accumulated while working for you. This is the most vital time to do this. It can actually engender great hope.

I know, I know, all of this sounds time consuming. But honestly it doesn’t have to be. All you have to do is genuinely appreciate and care about your people and it will come naturally. It is better to use the time during the organisational change productively and positively than deal with unnecessary stress and disputes.

Later in the week, I have a brilliant guest blogger who has taken their organisation through significant change in a tough unionised environment with a great result. Watch this space!

What do you think? Do you have any strategies to help people through difficult changes? We would love to hear from you.

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