What Does Being 'Change Ready' Really Mean?

With change management again in vogue is your organization ready for what's next?

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? Business Transformations are on the rise as organizations begin the road back from a pandemic.?For some, the effort is about reintroducing themselves to a public that went away for a while and may have forgotten the brand’s essence.?For others, it’s about a redesign of the business to reflect a different world of expectations and concerns.

Given that, you are bound to begin hearing the term ‘change ready’ as leaders prepare the company for impending upheaval to create a new future.?But what exactly does it mean for a company to be ‘change ready?’?Being involved in business transformation and change management throughout my career, specifically the critical role of strategic communications in the design, deployment, and decisions regarding organizational dissonance, ‘change ready’ is about establishing an internal dialogue and operational capacity of the following:

1. The Competitive Reality – does the organization understand the forces at work causing the business to re-calibrate its model? ?
2. The Organizational Challenge and Opportunity – what is the vision, mission, and strategic intent guiding the business??
3. Leadership Consensus – Have leaders been duly grounded in the new rules and assignments being demanded? ?
4. Management Orientation – Have managers and supervisors been immersed in new techniques, messages, and requirements for overseeing their work and the workforce??
5. A New Conversation – Is there a different vibe in the company regarding ideas, topics, POV, and data??
6. Making Change Important – Is Change a campaign or a way of life??A poster or a process??A message or a mandate?

????Prior to COVID-19, change management had become a sort of cottage industry with formulas, branding, and corporate speak dominating internal culture.?Today, business change must become an internal movement defined by action not rhetoric.?It must be personal and collaborative.?Co-Created and Co-Determined.????

?????Being ‘change ready’ as an enterprise is all about Mindset.?How the company and its people think about, process, learn, share, and operate moving forward amid myriad shifts in market, societal, and competitive dynamics.?Communications is a critical element for ensuring balance inside the business and aligning people from process to performance.

?????Change is constant and so should the people tasked with keeping ahead of the curve!

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????Gary?