Cultures of Trust and Openness

It is really demonstrated that 70% of all change initiatives fail. Managers are confused in a pile of change methodologies and finally fail from one method to another. Changes mean a big effort of human and economic activities for our companies.

Balancing economic and human approach can give us a good return of our efforts to make successful changes. Shareholders will expect successful changes measuring only financial returns. How can we achieve these returns? Surely applying strong layoffs and with restructuring processes.

But this is not the only way. We must consider also human capital in our organizations. If we develop our human capabilities we can also improve the results of our changes. However, there is a very important part in our organizations which is called trust, which will lead us towards healthy conflicts, more commitment with higher levels of accountability and finally achieving the results expected.

All this will contribute not only to success in changes but also develop effective teams and an excellent communication. Trust is an attribute well appreciated by employees and when leaders don’t follow a clear behavior promoting trust, emotional commitment, honest and transparent communication, they finally get all the contrary, employees distrust them.

Conquering hearts and minds of our employees will boost company value through hard changes.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is coming like a hurricane, strong, powerful and fast. It is so fast that even makes so difficult to establish the necessary regulatory and legislative frameworks.

Most of leaders are traditional and non-disruptive but managing changes in a predictable market, with linear growth trajectories, traditional models and rational consumer behaviors are non-applicable any more. 

It is very important that leaders maintain a cohesive behavior and balance between their believes, actions and who they are. They have to keep an eye in the short-long term action plan but they have to prioritize all the actions that permit them to act in a more strategic way and obtain a higher strategic view of the business.

Change is challenging and threatens our comfort zones. That zone where many times is so difficult to jump out. Change requires a lot of energy and it can involve a loss of control. When we feel loss of control we fall into uncertainty and such uncertainty is difficult to cope with, so the trick is to hang into whatever you can be certain about and whatever you are able control. However, change is a positive thing. When we change we grow and develop. Sometimes things do not work out as we planned. Even in that case we learn and all that learning that comes from will be very useful for new changes and new experiences.

The key to managing change successfully is to focus on what matters. Starting with the "why" is crucial. If you are clear about why the change is needed it is easier to stay focused on what is important. Accept there will be teething problems and that things will go wrong but do not lose sight of what is genuinely important.