I’ve been in the pretty unique position of having to perform change management at a relatively early stage in my career, and having to have done so for a couple of companies as well – and while I’m grateful for the experience, I’ve also been exposed to how utterly difficult it can be to have a team embrace change…

Start from the top

Before anything else, answer the question, “Why are we changing?”, and when you know the answer, tell every single person who will be affected by it. Your team, no matter how large or small, has to see the bigger picture, and understand why the change is needed; even though the long-term benefits might not be visible for some time, and the short- to mid-term execution might involve ambiguity and uncertainty, everyone should know why change needs to happen – whether they wholly agree or not.

One man’s coffee is another man’s tea

Realise that some of your staff will embrace change readily, and some will oppose it utterly – and everyone else will fall along this spectrum. Work with those that see the need on making sure they understand why; that they are bought into this; and on getting them to take ownership of the change. And then do the exact same thing for those that don’t see the need – they too need to understand why; they too need to buy into change (even if not fully); and they too need to take ownership.

Be ready to invest more time and effort in every affected individual – additional one-to-one time will be a must, as will more difficult conversations than you might have ever had as a manager before. Be patient, be personable, and realise that change can be a traumatic experience – within reason, give people more leeway with their emotional reactions than perhaps you would normally.

Finally, never, ever try to force change on people – change will only be successful when driven by those most affected by it, and change will be completely unsuccessful if forced.

Take responsibility and be clear

As someone who will be a key stakeholder in any change, never, ever use the excuse “It’s not my choice to do this…” It is essential, absolutely essential, you know why yourself, and to be invested in the change. Not all change is large, and not all change needs a full change management process – but all change needs you, as a leader, to lead. Leading is about bringing people with you – and when leading through change, this is absolutely vital.

Be as clear as you can about why the change is happening; what the expected end result is; what the organisation will actually be doing to implement this change; and what this means on people’s day-to-day roles. Once you know what needs to change, build this into the goals of the company, and the goals of everyone who is affected, and encourage people to realise that all that is desired is the end result – how that is achieved is up to everyone to define.

Try to remove as much ambiguity as you can, but realise you can’t remove it all – change, by its very nature, will mean no-one has all the answers. Allow for this…

Fail and encourage failure

…And realise that in changing, you and your team will fail. Wrong decisions will be made at all levels, and all levels should do their best to encourage failure, and learn from that failure.

One of my favourite pieces of advice received was “Ask for forgiveness, not for permission” – allow people to forge their own path towards the desired result, and let them make mistakes. Work with them to understand and define what success looks like, and as a leader, look at two key successes: the change that you are aiming for to be implemented (albeit, sometimes not quite in the form you expected); and the successful implementation of that change to have not come from you, but from your team.