What our approach looks like in practice

Last week we shared what makes our approach unique, and our method that creates real, lasting change. If you missed it, you can read the article here.

The bottom line is that at Yellow Hat, we believe real change is only possible when you combine change management, co-design, and strategic communication.

But what does that actually look like?

Over the past 12 months we have been working with several clients to support them through complex organisational transformations.

One of our clients was in the process of changing their overarching strategy, their operational model and beginning an information and communications technology (ICT) transformation to boot.

Their staff were committed to the organisation’s purpose and wanted to be involved in the change. However, they did not understand the direction of the organisation, they were not being brought on the journey and they were critical of their senior leaders. This is where the Yellow Hat team joined the organisation and implemented our approach.

Listen and understand

Our first action was to use our change and communication expertise to assess the culture and how aligned the leadership team were on their vision. Then we reviewed when and how the leadership team were communicating within the organisation. We held conversations and meetings with staff from across all levels to hear their real experiences, to understand what was working and identify opportunities to improve. These conversations, along with existing workplace data, meant we were able to quickly benchmark the current state.

Sharing and aligning on the current state

An important moment for any leadership team is when they stop and align on what is working well and how they can make improvements. We presented our findings and asked the leadership team how they felt. It was clear they were disappointed but also keen to make things better.

We presented a strategy and a sequence of tactics to implement immediately.

Applying change, communication and codesign to create the change

Next, we started a communication campaign to support the leaders to share the plan. It was important the leaders empathised with staff and provided a commitment to act.

We spent time with all areas of the organisation understanding what was changing, who was impacted and how they would be impacted (AKA a change impact assessment). This holistic view provided the data and intel the leadership team needed to begin managing the changes with the end user in mind. For example, was there too much change? How did this fit in with the BAU (business as usual) activity? Instantly the leadership team began using the data in their decisions and communicating this to staff. It was very impressive to observe and a pleasure to facilitate the process.

Building on the teams’ enthusiasm, we designed a workshop to support the leaders to codesign and align on their vision. It turned into a big day, and they invited representatives from across the organisation, representing every level, location and stakeholder group. The energy was incredible and by the end there was a powerful story and a unified team.

The day produced a lot of insights. We analysed the information and articulated this in a simple way that would resonate with people across the organisation. There were clear themes applied throughout the day, and a vision where everyone could see how their role would fit into the bigger picture.

But we wanted to make sure, so we met with people from every area of the organisation. We explained the session to them, the themes and we asked them “how could this apply to you?”. Within one hour, each team had articulated a future vision that was aligned to the bigger picture and specific to them and their colleagues. This was so special. Not only could we ensure the vision could relate to everyone, but we had even more buy in and champions.

Culture was going to be the blocker

The leaders were ready to launch the new vision, however, staff felt they were being spoken at and not listened to. In any transformation, we will recommend setting up staff groups to tell us what it is like for them day to day. We spoke to the staff again and their feedback still reflected the findings from our initial review. As a result, every leader took time out to listen to their staff and decide what action they would take to make their employee experience better. The leaders shared the actions they were committing to. The first action was to share where the organisation was heading, their vision for the future.

The outcome

Our three-pronged approach set our clients up for success. The co-designed future state served as the foundation for all change and communication activities. The involvement of the leaders and staff meant the leadership team and staff had genuine ownership of the change. It also ensured any communication, including informal conversations, were aligned to a consistent story. Going forward, the amount of change resistance will be minimised, due to everyone being unified to the same end goal. ??????????

It is always an incredible privilege to support leaders to create a better organisation than the one they started with. And it is so fun to watch people’s experience improve. Thank you to all our clients who let us support them to make your organisations even better.?