The Secret to Driving Change?

The secret to driving change?

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The pandemic has escalated transactions between organizations and accelerated transformations within them, intensifying the complexity of the enterprise landscape. For employees from the top down, it all amounts to change — and lots of it.

In an era defined by continuous change, the implications of transformation on the workforce is unnecessarily high and the toll that is takes on leadership and the workforce can be profound and long-lasting. It has the potential to create organizational anxiety, confusion, diffusion of focus and lower productivity. Overlooking the change experience can be detrimental, however… get it right and you can unlock the extraordinary.

Companies that are generating exponential value know how to put their people at the center of their organizations. It influences their fundamental strategy, how they operate, run and reframe their business for the future. It means building an exceptional experience for all employees, a factor of ever-increasing importance when 43% of employees are likely to quit their jobs in the next 12 months.

The four elements of a successful change journey

As Natalie Johnson, EY Global Change Leader, remarked in a recent article, successful change journeys work when they engage both the heart and the mind, balancing “hard” business-focused key performance indicators with “soft” success factors, such as empathy and purpose-led approaches that improve engagement.

The approach combines analytic tools with empathetic listening and is based on four foundational elements:

1.??????Purpose. Organizations need to start with “why” in everything they do to set a powerful course for change. A well-defined purpose serves as a litmus test for goal-setting and meeting the basic human need to feel part of something meaningful.

2.??????Insight. The right data and analytics can help companies gain actionable, analytics-driven insights and recommendations enabling a targeted approach to change support and interventions where they are needed most and to deliver the most impact.

3.??????Personalization. Employees increasingly want the same personalized experiences at work that they are used to as consumers. Organizations will want to focus on creating representative profiles on real employees, combined with current and future state journey and experience mapping.

4.??????Immersion. People remember moments and experiences that cut through the chaos. It’s important for organizations to create moments that matter through signature interventions that engage, inspire and take a holistic, 360-degree approach.

How internal agents of change can drive engagement and adoption

While tone-from-the-top leadership is important in propelling change, organizations have “secret agents” that they rarely acknowledge or use. These are the agents of change — key internal influencers who can drive change and create a tipping point for successful transformation. Agents of change may be the people who help workers do their jobs better (wellbeing practitioners, coaches, mentors). Alternatively, they may simply be the people who have the pulse of the organization.

It’s not always those you suspect who are top of the list, illustrated in a recent culture change program which revealed that the organization’s seven leaders were not the internal influencers. Instead, the most influential agents of change within the organization were the two receptionists. They sat near the front door, they knew everyone, they knew the projects that the organization was working on and the mood of every employee at any given point in the day. If anyone wanted to know anything about the organization, they went to the receptionists because they had their fingers on the pulse of the organization moment to moment and could make the right connections with the right people at the right time.

What this story demonstrates, and it’s backed up by research, is that influence may not be aligned to the formal power structures of your business. Driving change should leverage unexpected influencers and capture the benefit of informal communication, which can be two to three times more effective at reaching people than formal communications, such as emails or newsletters or other forms of communication that would come from leadership levels.

It also highlights the important positive impact agents of change can have. They’re chosen by their peers and deemed to be a trusted source of information. They also offer a kind of exothermic reaction that positively energize others. Leaders that identify and partner with agents of change can gain a direct line into the heart of an organization, enabling them to shift behaviors and shift the needle of a transformation journey.

Four ways organizations can harness the power of the agents of change

So how can leaders best leverage all that these agents of change have to offer? Here are four ideas:

1.??????Listen. Partnering with the agents of change requires leaders to listen intently and make them feel safe. This can’t be about manipulation or using them solely for the organization’s gain. It needs to be an equitable relationship where the influencers feel they are doing something good, something bigger than themselves, as opposed to serving as the organization’s puppets. Equally, they need to be made to feel their contributions are valued and not dismissed by those with roles of formal influence.

2.??????Take a light touch. Once you have gained their trust, you will have an opportunity to ask them to test informal messaging, provided you offer something in return that will motivate and make them feel good about the work you’re asking them to do.

3.??????Maintain a direct line of contact. Maintain a direct and regular cadence of communication with the agents of change to bring out the best in them and in you.

4.??????Scale up. Once you have an understanding of how effective agents of change can be, they can roll it out on a massive scale by having a variety of leaders meeting with agents of change in their areas and then having the leaders come together to debrief on what they’ve learned from a region, or around the world.

Changing the hearts and minds of an organization is about more than knowing who to go to for information. Changing behavior relies on interpersonal trust and the interpersonal energy that forms through informal networks.

As a leader, you may think you know who their agents of change are. Challenge that assumption. They are often not the people you think they are. Proportionally, agents of change tend more to be introverts. Don’t overlook them.

Leaders that can identify and leverage to maximum effect those who sit at the center of the trust network and can most positively energize others, will have much greater opportunity to enact positive change and a more successful transformation. ?

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The views reflected in this article are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the global EY organization or its member firms.

This article has been co-authored by Michael Thompson, EY’s EMEIA Strategy Leader & Workforce Advisory Leader and Haider Imam, EY Partner and Behavior Influencer Platform Founder.