What do you do if your organization is undergoing major changes and you need to lead your team through it?

Changes in an organization can be stressful for everyone involved. Understanding how the stakeholders make react is a key component to how the changes will be rolled out.

One thing I've found helpful is to reach out to fellow managers in the organization to discuss the extent and impact of changes. This can help you uncover common trends that you can address together but also can help you identify secondary impacts that might not be as evident but that can change the teams daily work.

To ensure a smooth implementation and adoption of upcoming changes, develop a clear outline detailing how they will take effect. Break down the changes into small, actionable steps. This will make the process more manageable and allow for easier adoption. Setting clear timelines and assigning ownership for each step is also crucial. By outlining a concrete plan, everyone will be better prepared for the change and know who the point of contact is for each task associated with the rollout.

Lead with transparency and empathy. Try something such as, "Here is what I know, and I recognize this is not as much information as you may like. This can be hard to navigate through and I am right there with you." Follow up in the days and weeks after the change or transition, and check-in individually with folks who may need 1:1 time. Don't let the transparency and empathy end abruptly, continue the momentum through regular updates and ongoing open communication.

I want to emphasize how important transparency is during a time of change. The team may be feeling many emotions, some will be more vocal than others. This is something you want to keep in mind. Share as much as possible with the team, focusing on how it will benefit them. Create value statements for the change.

Empowering your team helps create a sense of ownership and integrates them in the change process. Instead of feeling like “this is happening TO me”, it creates a mindset shift to “I get to HELP build this” which is much more conducive to success. We as humans don’t tend to deal with change well, so the more than we can feel like we have some semblance of control, the easier it will be to motivate.

Organizational change can be overwhelming for everybody. More so for the leaders and managers because of the additional responsibilities they carry to support the team going through the change. All these steps are crucial, but I think it missing the fundamental first step - Navigate your change management first. As a role model for the team, how you reacted and responded to the change yourself has an impact on the team. As a team leader, if you want to build resilience in the team, show the team how you are adaptive and resilient towards the change yourself. If you would like to know how to support the team through this change, be vulnerable and share how this change impacted you, the challenges you are facing, and how you overcome them.

Learn more about how people go through the emotional aspect of organizational change. William Bridge's Transition Curve is a useful tool to manage the employee experience. Leaders must tend to and mark the ending before employees can embrace the new way of working.