Change Strategies Employees Will Champion Successfully

Many employees are hesitant when it comes to change. It is, however,  required to be competitive in the ever-changing marketplace.   This means keeping up with current trends and research. It also means solving company problems as a team and embracing new opportunities as they arise.

Even though you, as a leader, may fully understand the necessity for change, your team members might not.  When they don’t, new  initiatives come with an accountability and commitment price. This is why proper planning and implementation of strategies are so vital to success.

Without thoughtful change management and team building strategies, your  initiatives will fall flat. Sixty-five percent of them do. The cost to your company is wasted time, effort, morale and resources.

So, how do you avoid failure during change?

Team Building Strategies for Thriving During Change

The following team building strategies help leaders and their teams to thrive during workplace change.

Start with your culture.

Change is much easier to handle if your team members are already accustomed to a certain level of flexibility.  Employees are more hesitant to embrace change when they become comfortable with their routines.

This type of work environment focuses on daily procedures rather than solutions to problems and new innovations. When change initiatives pop up, employees are resistant.

To break through resistance, create a culture of change that focuses on the people and how their lives will improve. Team members are more likely to champion the change if they’re excited about it. They are also more exited when they know that mistakes made during change are part of the learning and transition process.

The following three culture strategies whittle away at resistance:

• Show them how the change will positively affect their daily work.
• Encourage them to share their excitement with others.
• Create a process for discussing mistakes and uncertainties that shows everyone that mistakes are learning opportunities.

Also,  don’t  implement one change and call it good. Team members will be less resistant when they know that change is inevitable and occurs on a regular basis.

Develop your team members’ strengths.

Rather than focusing on your team members’ weaknesses, one of the most effective ways to build a strong culture full of employees willing to champion change is by developing their strengths.  Only 16 percent of U.S. employees are actively engaged in their positions according to Gallup research, and another 16 percent are actively disengaged. This leaves 51 percent of employees just showing up to work, They get their job done without feeling essential to the company. They do not know how valuable their contributions are to their organizations.

This leaves a lot of room for improvement.

Managers can bump up their employee engagement levels by discovering what their team members’ strengths are. A great place to start is by learning what your team’s strengths are through assessments. One assessment, the TIGERS Team Behavior Profile™, shows managers what the department behavior strengths are to leverage these strengths during chance. If trust is already high, for example, then employees will feel less risk and be less resistant.

With the TIGERS Team Behavior Profile™, there are three surveys for the investment in one survey package.  The multiple survey approach allows leaders to identify behavior strengths in the areas of trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. This shows managers how to reinforce their group dynamics during the change process.

Other assessments, include DISK.  DISK shows leaders their individual employee strengths.

By combining the two approaches (department behavior and employee strengths), leaders can develop those strengths and minimize weaknesses.  With the three in one survey approach, skills and behavior strengths can be reassessed to improve the culture environment that make long term change successful.

Teach team members to track their own performances.

As a leader, you can only lead and monitor your employees to a certain extent. At some point, team members need to take responsibility and accountability for their own performances, notes Engaging Employees to Champion Change.

Team members won’t be able to make performance changes  if they don’t have a clear understanding of where they currently stand. Optimal performance is based on five aspects that are in an employee’s control. These areas should be monitored and adjusted on a daily basis during change.  They include:

• The employee’s mental and physical health;
• The impact the employee makes on others around them;
• How challenged they feel by the work they are performing;
• The effort they put into tasks and their resiliency to failures; and,
• The excitement they feel in their role.

By gauging their response to these areas and making adjustments as necessary, resistance dissolves. Leaders and employees will both be more successful in embracing change.

Change can be difficult to embrace for many people.  At the same time, your company’s change initiatives cannot succeed without the commitment and accountability of your team members.

To thrive as an organization during times of change, leaders should implement some proven team building strategies for success. In review, these include:

• Starting with your company culture and encouraging change on a consistent basis to avoid complacency and resistance;
• Developing your team members’ strengths by assessing their group dynamic effectiveness based on the six core principles of trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success; and,
• Teaching team members to take stock in and track their own performances during change.

The self assessment and tracking includes the employee’s mental and physical health, impact, challenge, effort and excitement. With these team building strategies, leaders can successfully roll out and implement change initiatives within their organizations with minimized fear of failure.

Interested in digging a bit deeper into this topic?

Consider the following resources for more information:

• The TIGERS Team Behavior profile
• How to Get Your Company to Adapt to New Technologies
• Workplace Disruption: From Annual Reviews to Coaching
• Track these Five Performance Characteristics and You’re Guaranteed to Increase Your Potential

Copyright TIGERS Success Series, Inc. by Dianne Crampton

About TIGERS® Success Series, Inc.

TIGERS® Success Series is a Bend, Oregon Leadership and Team Improvement Consultant that helps committed leaders build more cooperation among employees and collaboration between departments for improved success.

We do this by deploying the TIGERS® team facilitation process that improves workforce behaviors that are anchored by trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk resolution and success. Providing diagnostics and customized team interventions,  you can improve both work culture and transform your adequate teams into exceptional ones.

We also license and train HRD Executives, Project Managers, Managers, and Trainers in the use of our award winning resources. Invite us to present at your next business retreat or association gathering.

For more information, call 1+ 541-385-7465.