How can you apply change leadership research to improve your organization?

Change is no longer an isolated event, it's a continuous reality. The project management approach to change is no longer relevant. I use the Change Readiness index as a part of regular leadership tune-ups and strategic organisational health-checks! In my experience, proactive change readiness indexing provides important markers to predict future success and plan for change leadership needs.

The opposite of change readiness is change fatigue and change saturation. This is something to watch out for when you start a new change initiative. This happens to organisation where too much change is happening at the same time.

Navigating change can be challenging, much like steering a ship. To ensure a smoother journey, it's crucial to prioritize change readiness. The heartbeat of change readiness determines how prepared and receptive your team is to change. Factors such as trust, understanding the 'why,' and organizational culture significantly influence this readiness. To tap into your team's change readiness, you can conduct surveys and workshops to understand their concerns, articulate the vision, and celebrate milestones. By boosting your team's change readiness, you can ensure smoother transitions and create a resilient team ready to face future challenges.

In my experience with teams and leadership teams, change readiness is way more present than some surveys might say! Leading a project or a team in the 21st century not only comes with being ready for change: it is often what attracts leaders to their position.

The best candidates for change champions are individuals who are so passionate about the change that they volunteer and go an extra mile in addition to their day-to-day work. They become early adopters and authentically advocate for change. You need to find such volunteers from different parts of the organisation to create a "champions league" of change agents.

Change champions are key players when a company wants to do things differently. They stand out because they're eager to help and make things better. They're not just waiting for instructions; they are ready to step up and offer solutions. Change champions can be anyone, from managers to regular team members. When you spot people who are good at working with others and can handle tough situations, you've likely found a change champion. To help them succeed, it's important to give them the right training and tools. They can then share their knowledge, making the whole team feel ready and confident about the change. Having change champions makes transitions smoother and more successful.

In collaborative projects, we know that the change leaders will benefit from putting their energy where it will have the greatest impact: it means that the effort will be more useful if spent on people who are already convinced, or easy to convince. They will show the way, engage others, and contribute to the efforts. Sometimes in my collaborative assignments with large corporations, I train these champions as ambassadors: they will engage and train other team members themselves. Try it and get ready to be amazed!

Change narrative needs to speak at the same time both to your heart and to your mind. It should start with WHY change is inavitable and describe a compelling vision for change. Change narrative can evolve over time but need to stay consistent.

We are wired to detect patterns & make predictions. Our experience of information & events is subjective. Subsequently, we're frequently engaging in acts of narrative construction. Change leadership research recognises that in the absence of a timely & coherent change narrative in an organisation, inaccurate 'corridor' narratives can develop that don't describe the change or frame its significance appropriately. While 'corridor' narratives are a natural part of the change management process - since everyone impacted will need to make sense of the change & their involvement in it, to build alignment leaders must anchor these inevitable conversations by inviting teams & individuals as co-participants within the 'core' change narrative.