Providing Education and Training Brings Effective Change
A constant factor in any business is organizational change. Companies must constantly improve their performance and take on new projects, in order to increase effectiveness. Change, whether it is changing the offers, the processes, the strategies, or the products, is an important part of organizational leadership. Change is inevitable and constant, so companies need to be able to adapt quickly.
It is so easy to fall into the routines of daily living. However, life is a journey that requires constant learning and growth. Change offers us the opportunity to make choices and expand, stretch, and discover new things. This article takes a closer look at what makes organizational change so challenging and what leaders can do to successfully lead their teams through the change.
What Makes Change So Challenging?
Change is often easier said than done. The primary reason why change is so difficult is that people are resistant to it. A Forbes survey showed that 68% of people don’t like to leave their comfort zone at work. Organizations can fail to achieve their business goals or initiatives when they don’t take the time to talk to their employees and understand their concerns or frustrations. It is imperative that leaders take time to be clear and transparent about upcoming changes. Adaptation to any change elicits thoughts and feelings and emotional responses and can take an extended amount of time. Oftentimes, the initiator of the change has the opportunity to think about, plan for and be a part of the process for a change that has been implemented. However, the employees that are the recipient of the change have had the change imposed upon them. Embracing the change is more challenging because they haven’t had the time to make adjustments and process the change.
How Can Leaders Facilitate Change Effectively Through Education and Training?
Effective change requires education. Communication skills and A successful Change Communication Plan will teach people about the change. People need to know what is happening and why (education). Those most closely involved with the change also need to know who needs to change and how (training).
With a few rare exceptions, major change should not be a complete surprise. Education builds dialogue so that when the details of the change become available, people embrace it more easily. Education describes what is happening, and offers information on what people can expect. It shares information about the intended objectives for the change and proactively involves others for ideas to get buy-in. Educating employees helps build excitement, replacing fear and preventing the spread of negativity in the face of change.
People affected by the change because they will need to support it should be included in deeper education about why they will need to interface differently with those impacted. This is best done in group Q&A sessions. Some education is usually directed at everyone. Doing so helps people feel more connected to the changes and to the organization. This can be handled in group meetings, team meetings, or even by email.
Effective change requires training. Telling people what will change is not enough information to change their behavior. Training shows people exactly how to make the changes. It ensures that people understand the new procedures. People should be taught what they will drop and add, what will stay the same, and how their tasks will interact with the overall process. Training should be tied to adjustments in any available expectations documents, including job descriptions, which are essential to workflow. It should include resources for reference and to help others to learn, as needed.
Training may be done to develop new skill sets. This takes more time. Training completion and mastery should be measured and should involve competent trainers. People impacted by the change because it will change what they do will need to be fully trained on how to do it. Most often, this is done in a 1:1 or small group setting. The training should be targeted at what each individual needs to learn.
What If Change Doesn’t Go Smoothly?
You may already be deep into a change that isn’t working. Maybe you didn’t plan well. Maybe you had a great Change Communication Plan, but people didn’t hear it due to their shock or fear. Maybe other organizational dynamics are working against you. When any of these occur, chaos is prevalent, morale is often down, and work may be suspended or ineffective.
Initially, people will experience some resistance or even rebellion, which prevents them from processing what they need to know. You can easily be several weeks or months down the road towards change and nothing was heard. The situation is recoverable. To do so, an organization will rely on (or develop) its leaders’ abilities to develop people around the cycle of change. This can happen in 1:1 meetings to determine where each person is in the change cycle and provide education and training to teach them what they need to know to fully engage in the change. If they are rebelling, the first step is to dispel their fear. If they are reconnecting for the first time, you will need to repeat earlier communication. Once they learn what they need to know, they will start to explore and help others do the same.
This will lead to recovery, improved morale, and productivity. Those same leaders should determine which elements in this formula were missing from the original Change Communication Plan. If there wasn’t a plan, now is the time to create one. Maybe the Change Communication Plan was good but it didn’t occur as planned, or people felt fearful and didn’t take in the information. Leaders should determine what is missing and what is needed. Usually, input from the team will help in the diagnosis
What are the Ground Rules for Communication?
- Companies planning major change should drop hints about it. Some changes are confidential; however, the more transparency, the easier it will be.
- Involve as many people as possible in the dialogue to plan and make the change.
- Pre-sell the changes with everyone to get buy-in and support, and to understand concerns.
- Cover substantial change with each person affected in a 1:1 private meeting (new boss, new job, loss of an area of focus, substantial changes in focus, etc.).
Successful Change communication requires the willingness to be repetitive with the message and have multiple touchpoints to ensure the changes happen as planned. It is the myriad of conversations that change managers and recipients have that create vision, possibility, and opportunity. People become engaged and mobilized and problems are resolved.
How Can You Enhance Communication in Your Organization?
InterFace Methods™ is a tool to enhance communications with anyone in your network. Individuals learn to better communicate with and influence others. When using the tool with others, it improves our ability to connect and collaborate. Inter Face Methods Learning eXcelerator™ provides a quick, easy compelling experience to enhance inclusion, collaboration, influence, and productivity. It offers participants the ability to learn about each other’s communication methods while teaching strategies to adapt, influence, and include. The result is team connectivity that builds the ability to solve problems together and increase productivity. Inclusion is enhanced when everyone on the team is able to hear each other’s voices, build communication skills, increase retention, and build more collaborative solutions.
EDGES™ ultimate goal is to provide individuals and organizations the tools needed to create a workplace environment rich in adaptation, connection, and alignment. We believe your team should be better as a result of working with us. If you are ready to strengthen communication in your organization or would like more information about the InterFace Method™ tool, go to interfacemethods.com.