Managing Change and Transformation and through Brexit

There is much uncertainty as to what the full implications of Brexit are and IT leaders need to plan in managing their people, partners and customers through this 'change journey', in the wake of the UK’s vote to exit the EU (full Brexit article here)

Lead and reassure

Change is hard -  To succeed at change, transformation leaders should evaluate and address gaps in their emotional intelligence as well as their senior leadership teams.

They can exploit this new insight to better understand how individuals deal with change and overcome potential emotional hurdles to successful business transformation.

Key Challenges

• Business transformation leaders and business process directors are often gifted with sharp analytical and problem-solving skills. However, they may be less adept at empathising with the changes that their decisions bring about.
• Transformation leaders are often very focused on logic and less perceptive about other people's emotions, or how to connect them. This can impair the relationship-building ability needed to win people's trust and support.
• Even a leader with high emotional intelligence can still find the team he or she leads to be ineffective. It takes only one badly behaved member to impact the entire group's dynamics.

Recommendations

Business Transformation leaders must:

• Improve their social awareness by developing their empathy. Learn to read the visual and vocal cues that reveal people's real emotions. Employ positive language to combat the negative responses that are often associated with transformational change.
• Develop their competence in relationship management to build trust and reduce conflict in the teams they lead. This includes reinvigorating their leadership style to be more visionary, and to become change catalysts for the transformation they lead. Moving from control to empowerment with strong supporting constructs is key to succeeding
• Evaluate their team's group emotional intelligence and understand the impact of culture on people's emotions and behaviours. Use this to develop the cultural norms that shape a team's emotional responses, behaviours and actions.
• Identify their organisational culture and the norms it has set. Evaluate how these affect employee emotions and behaviours
• Take a group emotional intelligence test with a provider such as EBW (Emotions & Behaviours at Work)or the Institute for Health and Human Potential (IHHP)- or an academic assessment such as the Group Emotional Competence (GEC) inventory or the Work Group Emotional Intelligence Profile (WEIP) — to evaluate their individual and team EI.
• Use the results from the emotional intelligence assessment to develop cultural norms for the group that will guide individuals to conform to exhibiting the desired emotions and behaviours.

 If you find this interesting, I’d strong suggest you set up a call with Samantha Searle or Debra Logan, whose research is pragmatic, deeper and relevant. The implications of Brexit are not known but the one thing is sure… we as senior business leaders, need to manage and lead our people through these uncertain times. Different strategies and approaches will evolve as options and opportunities become clear.

This is the time to increase your communication to your people and stakeholders - manage the journey as if this was a transformation program. It is!  Use their emotional intelligence to see what it is - and adapt your leadership style to what is needed through this journey.