4 Keys to Embracing the pace of change in your organisation

In the last year, to eighteen months, global organisations have been in the midst of unprecedented change.

Many companies have replaced their routine of a 9:00am – 5:00pm in-house set up with a remote regime; conference room meetings have been replaced with virtual Zoom calls, while for some, every day feels like ‘dress down Friday’.

The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 prompted the beginning of sweeping changes in organisations; of those who did some work from home,?86%?did so as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

And the shift to remote working shows no signs of slowing down, with?Google encouraging remote working, if possible, along with many other companies.

The recent changes to office life are reflective of work in itself: circumstances never remain the same – it’s a case of adapting to the pace of change and putting adequate measures in place to support your workforce.

Granted, adapting and changing isn’t easy, particularly if you’re trying to change a setup that’s been in place for a prolonged period.

With Co-Creation Group, we apply our strengths model for change management, and help you embrace the pace of change in your organisation.

1.??????Focus on purpose

Oftentimes, companies view change as an obstacle blocking their path, and a hindrance to their short and long-term goals.

However, there are times when you need to adapt or face the prospect of potential irreversible damage to your team – or your organisation.

High street company HMV is the epitome of why organisations need to embrace change.

In 2013, the consumption of music was dominated by streaming platforms such as Spotify, and Apple Music. The company needed to reassess their strategy, yet they opted against changing tact, despite?73.4% of music and film being downloaded or bought online; in short, they were applying a business model that was outdated and unsustainable.

While the business has managed to avoid the scare, a failure to adapt its business model to accommodate the emergence of streaming services has seen its impact in the contemporary entertainment business diminish.

The moral of the story: when necessary, bring people in your organisation together around a purpose and adapt your mindset to survive in your respective market and thrive. View change as an opportunity for growth and an opportunity, instead of a hurdle.

Your team needs to be purpose-led, and create a vision of a positive future in which goals are collective, with an emphasis on progression, not regression.

2.???Develop a deep understanding of your colleagues

While you may understand your colleagues at face value, this isn’t enough to change the demands of your team – you need to delve much deeper into the intricacies of the people you’re working with to introduce high, yet attainable goals for you and your team.

We help teams develop a deeper understanding of their strengths,?values, each other, beyond the role, the person, their energies, and therefore enable the team to be more diverse and able to adapt quickly to changing demands on the team.

Build the right team dynamic

Before you can develop an understanding of your team, you need to ensure you have the right team in place.

A great team is at the cornerstone of every company’s success; you need to build diverse teams to deliver better outcomes; before you can build a?desirable?team, you have to identify the traits of an?undesirable?team:

• An unintelligent team (homogeneous), void of diverse skill sets
• A set-up in which team members mimic the behaviors of a dominant leader
• A diverse team with a dominant culture
• An overly intelligent team, in which team members demonstrate a rebellious streak

A team with one of (or several) of the aforementioned characteristics could hinder the establishment of a positive mindset and prohibit change within your team.

Therefore, we’ve put together a six-step process to help you introduce a collective approach amongst your team:

1. Value diverse thinking and challenge our unconscious biases
2. Proactively build diverse teams
3. Create processes to establish equality
4. Champion inclusive approaches
5. Develop conscious knowledge of energisers, motivations, and strengths in ourselves and our colleagues
6. Build vulnerability-based trust in our relationships & engage in healthy conflict

3.???Take risks and be agile

We help people take risks and be more agile as they grow more comfortable working in this VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) environment through finding vision, understanding, clarity, and agility.

We encourage leaders to build organisational structures that have flex and fluidity in them; forming around projects and needs rather than assuming permanency in resource and knowledge demands from customers.

4. Emphasise a learning and growth mindset

Whether it’s at work, or in our personal lives, change is continual, and the evolution of circumstances can be somewhat chaotic.

However, this does not mean that it can’t be managed; we need to be organic, agile and manage a mindset guided by the path of possibility.

Our thoughts have an overwhelming impact on how we behave; if we tell ourselves we can’t do something, then the chances are we’ll fail.

Similarly, if we’re positive and approach a challenge, in this case change by telling ourselves we can accomplish our end goal, then we greatly improve our chances of success.

This feeds into Carol Dweck’s fixed mindset vs growth mindset philosophy:

This approach prepares people to become more comfortable with pace being a part of learning – not everything is known and mistakes will happen – but a growth mindset is about not repeating these, not being fearful but being up for rapid learning and actively seeking input and feedback to help you. It’s about being open to challenges and being held accountable by your team members.

This article was developed for, and in collaboration with Co-Creation Group.