Aligning Personal and Company Values: A Guide

Why Core Values Matter for Both you & your Company

People power every organization. Their values drive decisions, actions, and outcomes. By aligning personal and company values, you’ll notice extraordinary things start to happen. But what drives those behaviours? At the heart of it all are personal values – the underlying principles that guide how we think, feel and act.

When personal values match the organization’s culture, job satisfaction soars and productivity improves. Aligning personal values with company values fosters increased job satisfaction, employee engagement, and ultimately contributes to the success of the organization. When there’s a mismatch, it leads to frustration, resistance and wasted potential.

At Primeast we’ve seen values alignment transform not just the experience of work but the performance of organizations. It’s a foundation of a thriving workplace culture. With our free online personal values tool you can start to uncover what drives you and your team and lay the groundwork for meaningful alignment and real success.

In this article we’ll look at the role of personal values in shaping behaviours, building better teams and driving organizational results, and why alignment is key to long term success. Whether you’re an individual looking to understand your own drivers or a leader looking to strengthen your team’s culture, understanding values is the first step.

Understanding Your Personal Values

Your personal values are the invisible compass that guides every decision you make. They are what matters most to you; integrity, balance, achievement, compassion, to name a few. These values are deeply ingrained in your experiences and beliefs and shape how you approach challenges, interact with others and find purpose in your work. Personal values guide your thoughts, words, and actions, both personally and professionally.

When people are clear on their values they can bring their best self to the table. Self awareness allows them to make choices that align with their principles and therefore be more fulfilled and effective. For organizations this is gold. People who know and align their personal values with their role are more likely to be engaged and invested in their work.

Knowing your personal values is the first step to an authentic and empowered workforce. That’s why we offer our free online personal values tool to help you discover your top 10 values.

By knowing what drives you, you can make intentional input to your team and organization and set yourself up for success.

Get started today and find your own values. It’s a small step that can have big outcomes for you and your organization.

The Role of Corporate Values in Organizations

Corporate values are the foundation of success. They:

Shape the company’s identity
Guide decision-making
Define employee interactions internally and externally

When corporate values are clearly defined and embraced, they create a cohesive company culture that fosters a positive work environment and drives employee engagement.

Imagine a company where integrity, innovation, and customer focus are core values. These principles will guide every action and decision, from how products are developed to how customer service is handled.

Employees will feel a sense of purpose and alignment with the company’s mission, leading to higher motivation and productivity. Customers and stakeholders will recognize and appreciate the consistency and authenticity of the company’s actions, strengthening their trust and loyalty.

By establishing and living by a clear set of corporate values, organizations can create a thriving culture that not only attracts top talent but also drives long-term business success.

It’s not just about having values written on a wall; it’s about embedding them into the very fabric of the organization.

Company Values and Their Importance

Company values are more than just words; they are the core principles that define an organization’s identity and purpose. These values provide a framework for decision-making, guiding employee behavior and shaping the overall culture. When company values are well-defined and consistently communicated, they create a positive work environment where employees feel engaged and motivated.

Consider a company that prioritizes teamwork, excellence, and respect. These values will influence how employees collaborate, strive for high standards, and treat each other with dignity. Such a culture not only enhances employee satisfaction but also drives better business outcomes.

Employees who feel aligned with the company’s values are more likely to be committed, productive, and innovative.

In essence, company values are the foundation upon which successful organizations are built. They help create a unified direction, foster a sense of belonging, and drive employee engagement. By living these values every day, companies can build strong relationships with customers and stakeholders, ultimately leading to sustained success.

Identifying and Defining Core Company Values

Identifying and defining core values is a fundamental step in building a strong and cohesive company culture. This process involves reflecting on the organization’s mission, vision, and purpose, as well as the principles that are most important to its success. Companies can create a clear and concise set of core values that guide employee behavior and decision-making.

To start, gather input from various stakeholders, including employees, leaders, and customers, to understand what values resonate most. Reflect on the organization’s history, achievements, and challenges to identify the principles that have driven success. Once these core values are identified, articulate them in a way that is clear, memorable, and actionable.

For example, a company might define its core values as integrity, innovation, and customer focus. These values should be more than just words; they should be embedded into every aspect of the organization, from hiring practices to performance evaluations.

By defining and living these core values, companies can create a shared sense of purpose and direction, fostering employee engagement and driving business success.

The benefits of Aligning Personal and Company Values

When we bring our values to work it doesn’t just affect our own behaviour it affects our teams and ultimately the culture of the organization. The average person will spend a significant amount of their life working, making the alignment of personal values crucial.

Aligned values are a unifying force that drive:

Clarity: Teams understand shared goals and work cohesively.
Trust: Employees feel respected and valued.
Purpose: A shared mission motivates collaboration.

Conversely, misaligned values lead to:

Misunderstandings: Confusion about expectations.
Inefficiencies: Reduced productivity and missed opportunities.
Conflict: Friction that stalls progress.

In high performing teams shared or complementary values are the foundation of success. For example when team members value honesty and openness communication flows even in tough times. When fairness and respect are the priority individuals feel empowered to contribute knowing their voice will be heard. These behaviours aren’t nice to have they are essential to building trust and innovation.

At an organizational level alignment between personal values and an organization’s culture can change how we experience work. Research from cultural assessments shows that organizations with high value alignment have higher engagement, stronger collaboration and greater resilience in the face of challenge.

Misalignment shows up as limiting behaviours such as hierarchy, confusion or silo mentality as Cultural Entropy® analysis reveals.

cultural Entropy

A shared understanding of values allows leaders to create a culture where individuals feel connected to the organization’s purpose. It’s that connection that drives loyalty, performance and turns employees into ambassadors. Whether you’re leading a small team or a global organization the ripple effect of values alignment can be felt in every interaction and outcome. Aligning personal and company values is crucial for achieving the organization’s goals.

Try it in your organization? Start with individual reflection and conversation. Use our personal values assessment to get the conversation started and align your team’s strengths with your values.

Communicating Values Effectively

Effective communication of values is crucial for embedding them into the organization’s culture. It’s not enough to simply define values; they must be communicated clearly and consistently to ensure that all employees understand and embody them. This involves using multiple channels and methods to reinforce the company’s values at every opportunity.

Start by integrating values into onboarding programs, ensuring that new employees understand the company’s core principles from day one. Use regular company-wide meetings to highlight how values are being lived out in the organisation, sharing stories and examples that bring them to life. Incorporate values into performance evaluations, recognizing and rewarding employees who exemplify them.

Additionally, create visual reminders of the company’s values, such as posters, screensavers, and internal newsletters. Encourage leaders to model the values in their daily actions and decisions, setting the tone for the rest of the organization.

If you are communicating values effectively, you can build a strong, values-driven culture that fosters employee engagement, builds trust, and drives business success.

How to Use Values for Organizational Success

Understanding and aligning values is more than an intellectual exercise, it’s a lever for real change. Clearly articulated and defined values serve as a foundation for guiding employee behavior, decision-making, and overall company identity.

How to develop your culture

Companies with extremely healthy cultures see significant benefits, including increased stock price and revenue growth, which stem from the alignment of organisational and employee values, resulting in enhanced engagement and retention.

Here’s how individuals, teams and organizations can tap into the power of values to unlock potential and achieve success:

For Individuals

Find Your Values: Reflect on the principles that guide your decisions and actions. Use our free personal values assessment to clarify your core drivers.

Align Your Behaviour: Look at how your daily actions reflect your values. Small changes can increase your authenticity and job satisfaction. Aligning personal and company values can further enhance job satisfaction and employee engagement.

Tell Your Values: Share your values with colleagues and leaders. Open conversations build understanding and connection.

For Leaders and Teams

Team Reflection: Ask team members to explore and share their personal values. This will reveal commonalities and diversity. Model Aligned Behaviour: As a leader demonstrate how your personal and organizational values play out. This sets the tone and inspires your team to do the same. Companies and employees often share many of the same values, and recognizing this can enhance organizational cohesion and overall productivity.

Embed Values into Process: Put shared values into team goals, decision making frameworks and feedback mechanisms to align across every touchpoint.

For Company Culture

Conduct a Culture Assessment: Diagnose how personal, current and desired culture values align across your organization. This will give you a clear picture of what’s working and what needs attention. Core company values play a crucial role in shaping the employee experience and fostering a cohesive workplace environment.

Prioritise Key Values: Use assessment insights to identify the values that will drive engagement and success. Eliminate limiting values like bureaucracy or silos that will hold you back.

Bring Values to Life: Make values visible and actionable through leadership development, communication strategies and recognition programs. A living values framework means alignment becomes part of your culture.

By doing this you’ll create an environment where individuals can thrive, teams can work together and your organization can reach its full potential. Start small by understanding your own values and watch the ripple effect change the way your organization works.

Case Study Insights: The Measurable Impact of Alignment

The link between values alignment and organizational success isn’t just theoretical, it’s backed up by real results. Organizations that align values see measurable results:

Higher employee engagement
Improved business performance
Reduced turnover

Building create culture equals outstanding performance

For example, data from cultural assessments shows a direct correlation between values alignment and lower Cultural Entropy®. Cultural Entropy measures the amount of friction caused by misaligned or limiting values, such as hierarchy, bureaucracy or internal competition. Organizations with lower Cultural Entropy get higher revenue growth, better customer satisfaction and lower turnover.

Take the example of a global media company that reduced voluntary staff turnover by 30% after addressing misalignments and reinforcing shared values. Or a Brazilian consumer goods company that got double digit revenue growth by creating a culture aligned to its employees and stakeholders values. These results show the power of prioritizing alignment.

At an individual level alignment gives employees meaning in their work, increasing their motivation and commitment. At a team level shared values build trust and collaboration, improving overall performance. And at an organizational level a values driven culture is a competitive advantage, allowing businesses to adapt and thrive in a fast changing world.

By starting with tools like the personal values assessment and conducting organisational culture evaluations, you can identify the gaps between personal, current, and desired values. These insights provide a clear roadmap to creating a culture where everyone can thrive.

Need help aligning your values?

At the heart of every successful business is a foundation of shared values. When people know their personal values and align them with their team and business culture the impact is huge. Engagement, collaboration and performance all improve and everyone and the business can thrive.

The journey to alignment starts with one step: self awareness. By knowing your personal values you’ll get clarity on what drives you and how you can contribute to your team and business. Tools like our free online personal values assessment make this easy and accessible, sparking conversations that can lead to deeper connections and shared purpose.

For leaders and businesses, alignment isn’t just about recognising values – it’s about living them. By putting values into decision making, development initiatives and culture building you create a workplace where people feel empowered and engaged.

Now is the time to unleash the potential in your people and your business. Explore your values, have open conversations and take deliberate action to align individual and business purpose. Together we can create cultures where people flourish and businesses succeed.

Aligning Personal and Company Values: A Guide

Why Core Values Matter for Both you & your Company

People power every organisation. Their values drive decisions, actions, and outcomes. By aligning personal and company values, you’ll notice extraordinary things start to happen. But what drives those behaviours? At the heart of it all are personal values – the underlying principles that guide how we think, feel and act.

When personal values match the organisation’s culture, job satisfaction soars and productivity improves. Aligning personal values with company values fosters increased job satisfaction, employee engagement, and ultimately contributes to the success of the organisation. When there’s a mismatch, it leads to frustration, resistance and wasted potential.

At Primeast we’ve seen values alignment transform not just the experience of work but the performance of organisations. It’s a foundation of a thriving workplace culture. With our free online personal values tool you can start to uncover what drives you and your team and lay the groundwork for meaningful alignment and real success.

In this article we’ll look at the role of personal values in shaping behaviours, building better teams and driving organisational results, and why alignment is key to long term success. Whether you’re an individual looking to understand your own drivers or a leader looking to strengthen your team’s culture, understanding values is the first step.

Understanding Your Personal Values

When people are clear on their values they can bring their best self to the table. Self awareness allows them to make choices that align with their principles and therefore be more fulfilled and effective. For organisations this is gold. People who know and align their personal values with their role are more likely to be engaged and invested in their work.

Knowing your personal values is the first step to an authentic and empowered workforce. That’s why we offer our free online personal values tool to help you discover your top 10 values.

By knowing what drives you, you can make intentional input to your team and organisation and set yourself up for success.

Get started today and find your own values. It’s a small step that can have big outcomes for you and your organisation.

The Role of Corporate Values in Organisations

Corporate values are the foundation of success. They:

Shape the company’s identity
Guide decision-making
Define employee interactions internally and externally

When corporate values are clearly defined and embraced, they create a cohesive company culture that fosters a positive work environment and drives employee engagement.

Employees will feel a sense of purpose and alignment with the company’s mission, leading to higher motivation and productivity. Customers and stakeholders will recognise and appreciate the consistency and authenticity of the company’s actions, strengthening their trust and loyalty.

By establishing and living by a clear set of corporate values, organisations can create a thriving culture that not only attracts top talent but also drives long-term business success.

It’s not just about having values written on a wall; it’s about embedding them into the very fabric of the organisation.

Company Values and Their Importance

Company values are more than just words; they are the core principles that define an organisation’s identity and purpose. These values provide a framework for decision-making, guiding employee behavior and shaping the overall culture. When company values are well-defined and consistently communicated, they create a positive work environment where employees feel engaged and motivated.

Consider a company that prioritises teamwork, excellence, and respect. These values will influence how employees collaborate, strive for high standards, and treat each other with dignity. Such a culture not only enhances employee satisfaction but also drives better business outcomes.

Employees who feel aligned with the company’s values are more likely to be committed, productive, and innovative.

In essence, company values are the foundation upon which successful organisations are built. They help create a unified direction, foster a sense of belonging, and drive employee engagement. By living these values every day, companies can build strong relationships with customers and stakeholders, ultimately leading to sustained success.

Identifying and Defining Core Company Values

Identifying and defining core values is a fundamental step in building a strong and cohesive company culture. This process involves reflecting on the organisation’s mission, vision, and purpose, as well as the principles that are most important to its success. Companies can create a clear and concise set of core values that guide employee behavior and decision-making.

To start, gather input from various stakeholders, including employees, leaders, and customers, to understand what values resonate most. Reflect on the organisation’s history, achievements, and challenges to identify the principles that have driven success. Once these core values are identified, articulate them in a way that is clear, memorable, and actionable.

For example, a company might define its core values as integrity, innovation, and customer focus. These values should be more than just words; they should be embedded into every aspect of the organisation, from hiring practices to performance evaluations.

By defining and living these core values, companies can create a shared sense of purpose and direction, fostering employee engagement and driving business success.

The benefits of Aligning Personal and Company Values

When we bring our values to work it doesn’t just affect our own behaviour it affects our teams and ultimately the culture of the organisation. The average person will spend a significant amount of their life working, making the alignment of personal values crucial.

Aligned values are a unifying force that drive:

Clarity: Teams understand shared goals and work cohesively.
Trust: Employees feel respected and valued.
Purpose: A shared mission motivates collaboration.

Conversely, misaligned values lead to:

Misunderstandings: Confusion about expectations.
Inefficiencies: Reduced productivity and missed opportunities.
Conflict: Friction that stalls progress.

At an organisational level alignment between personal values and an organisation’s culture can change how we experience work. Research from cultural assessments shows that organisations with high value alignment have higher engagement, stronger collaboration and greater resilience in the face of challenge.

Misalignment shows up as limiting behaviours such as hierarchy, confusion or silo mentality as Cultural Entropy® analysis reveals.

cultural Entropy

A shared understanding of values allows leaders to create a culture where individuals feel connected to the organisation’s purpose. It’s that connection that drives loyalty, performance and turns employees into ambassadors. Whether you’re leading a small team or a global organisation the ripple effect of values alignment can be felt in every interaction and outcome. Aligning personal and company values is crucial for achieving the organisation’s goals.

Try it in your organisation? Start with individual reflection and conversation. Use our personal values assessment to get the conversation started and align your team’s strengths with your values.

Communicating Values Effectively

Effective communication of values is crucial for embedding them into the organisation’s culture. It’s not enough to simply define values; they must be communicated clearly and consistently to ensure that all employees understand and embody them. This involves using multiple channels and methods to reinforce the company’s values at every opportunity.

If you are communicating values effectively, you can build a strong, values-driven culture that fosters employee engagement, builds trust, and drives business success.

How to Use Values for Organisational Success

How to develop your culture

Here’s how individuals, teams and organisations can tap into the power of values to unlock potential and achieve success:

For Individuals

Find Your Values: Reflect on the principles that guide your decisions and actions. Use our free personal values assessment to clarify your core drivers.

Tell Your Values: Share your values with colleagues and leaders. Open conversations build understanding and connection.

For Leaders and Teams

Team Reflection: Ask team members to explore and share their personal values. This will reveal commonalities and diversity. Model Aligned Behaviour: As a leader demonstrate how your personal and organisational values play out. This sets the tone and inspires your team to do the same. Companies and employees often share many of the same values, and recognising this can enhance organizational cohesion and overall productivity.

Embed Values into Process: Put shared values into team goals, decision making frameworks and feedback mechanisms to align across every touchpoint.

For Company Culture

Conduct a Culture Assessment: Diagnose how personal, current and desired culture values align across your organisation. This will give you a clear picture of what’s working and what needs attention. Core company values play a crucial role in shaping the employee experience and fostering a cohesive workplace environment.

Prioritise Key Values: Use assessment insights to identify the values that will drive engagement and success. Eliminate limiting values like bureaucracy or silos that will hold you back.

By doing this you’ll create an environment where individuals can thrive, teams can work together and your organisation can reach its full potential. Start small by understanding your own values and watch the ripple effect change the way your organisation works.

Case Study Insights: The Measurable Impact of Alignment

The link between values alignment and organisational success isn’t just theoretical, it’s backed up by real results. Organisations that align values see measurable results:

Higher employee engagement
Improved business performance
Reduced turnover

Building create culture equals outstanding performance

For example, data from cultural assessments shows a direct correlation between values alignment and lower Cultural Entropy®. Cultural Entropy measures the amount of friction caused by misaligned or limiting values, such as hierarchy, bureaucracy or internal competition. Organisations with lower Cultural Entropy get higher revenue growth, better customer satisfaction and lower turnover.

At an individual level alignment gives employees meaning in their work, increasing their motivation and commitment. At a team level shared values build trust and collaboration, improving overall performance. And at an organisational level a values driven culture is a competitive advantage, allowing businesses to adapt and thrive in a fast changing world.

Need help aligning your values?

How Employee Empowerment Effects Change Management

What is Employee Empowerment?

Employee empowerment is a transformative management approach that grants employees the autonomy, authority, and resources necessary to take ownership of their work and make independent decisions. Unlike traditional hierarchical structures where decision-making power is concentrated at the top, empowerment distributes this power throughout the organization. This shift enables employees to think critically, innovate, and solve problems independently, leading to increased job satisfaction, productivity, and engagement. When employees feel empowered, they are more likely to be motivated and committed to their roles, driving the organization’s success.

How to Build Sustainable Workplace Change with Employee Empowerment?

The process of leading change is different to other supervisory functions which most managers have undertaken. Yet organizations often make the mistake of selecting an executive to lead change based upon his or her recognized management abilities. Such abilities are mostly disassociated from those required in change management.

Change is difficult for most people. They fear it. People who fear change become disengaged from it. When this happens, change fails.

Leading change requires a skillset which includes understanding how to empower employees in the workplace. By empowering people in the process of change, you accept that change is not simply a process. It requires a new way of thinking, a new way of acting, and a greater ambition to collaborate, engage, and innovate. When employees are empowered to change, the future vision is given new meaning. The vision becomes a shared goal, and empowerment enables the goal to become a sustainable reality. Employee engagement is crucial in this context, as it directly impacts the success of the change process.

To successfully lead change, it is essential to encourage employees to take ownership and initiative in their work. This fosters a culture where employees feel empowered to tackle tasks autonomously, communicate openly, and engage in problem-solving, thereby enhancing their productivity and creativity within the organization.

In this article, you’’ll learn to leverage empowerment in change management. As we compare the fortunes of two largescale organizational change projects, you’’ll discover how the chief executives of JC Penney and Telstra took very different approaches when their companies were suffering from declining revenues.

A Failure to Empower Employees Leads to a Failure to Change

In the mid-to-late 2000s, JC Penney was suffering. Its traditional base of customers was being targeted by increasingly competitive low-cost retailers. Its sales had slumped, and in 2011 it turned to Ron Johnson to lead a resurgence.

Johnson came with a formidable track record. He’d been the vice president of merchandising at Target, where he had been responsible for launching the successful Michael Graves product line. Taken on by Apple, it had been Johnson who had led the company’s charge into brick-and-mortar stores. He oversaw record growth in the now iconic Apple Stores.

Johnson seemed to be a perfect fit for the ailing JC Penney.

Johnson’s strategy was simple: move out of the low-cost space, and compete with high-end retailers. His approach to this massive change was to try to force it through. He commanded his troops, rather than inspired them. He created his strategy without regard for history, nor with the collaboration of JC Penney ‘lifers’. He failed to understand the culture of the firm, its employees, managers and customers.

Predictably, the results were disastrous and are still being felt today, four years after he was fired in 2013. Sales fell through the floor. Revenues collapsed, as did profits. Major shareholders deserted the company. So, too, did key workers and floor staff. The company has never recovered its poise with customers.

When Johnson was hired as CEO in 2011, the JC Penney stock price stood at around $35. By the time Johnson and JC Penney parted ways in April 2013, the stock price had more than halved. Today, many analysts believe JC Penney is on the brink of bankruptcy. The enormous failures of the Johnson era have not been shaken off. Customers lost during his tenure have not returned.

The benefits of employee empowerment are evident in many successful companies. Organizations that prioritize employee well-being and autonomy often see enhanced motivation, collaboration, and overall better business outcomes.

Benefits of Empowering Employees

Empowering employees offers a multitude of benefits for both individuals and organizations. Here are some key advantages:

Increased job satisfaction and engagement:
- Empowered employees feel more invested in their work, leading to higher levels of motivation and commitment.
Improved productivity
- When employees have the autonomy to make decisions and take ownership of their tasks, they tend to be more productive and efficient.
Enhanced creativity and innovation
- Empowered employees are encouraged to think outside the box and develop innovative solutions to challenges.
Better decision-making
- Employees who are empowered are more likely to make informed decisions that align with the organization’s goals and objectives.
Increased employee retention
- Feeling valued and respected, empowered employees are more likely to stay with the organization, reducing turnover rates.
Improved customer satisfaction
- Empowered employees are more likely to provide excellent customer service, leading to higher levels of customer satisfaction.

training group

Communicating change to empower employees at Telstra

While Johnson was attempting to force through change at JC Penney, David Thodey at Telstra was taking a wholly different approach. The Australian telecoms company was suffering from declining sales amid stiffening competition when Thodey was appointed CEO in 2009.

Immediately he recognized that the organization needed to change. But, instead of seeing himself as the sole commissioner of change, he recognized that all of Telstra’s executives, employees and customers were pivotal to change success. He set about empowering his 300 senior executives to work with Telstra’s employees, engaging all in the change project to promote employee empowerment.

Together, they developed training and one-on-one coaching courses, inviting feedback, managing expectations, and evolving people’s beliefs and values in line with those of the organization. He put in place new recognition programs, which rewarded individuals and teams. He encouraged people to participate in a shared future.

To support employee empowerment, Thodey emphasized setting clear expectations, providing training, encouraging autonomy, and fostering open communication.

By the time Thodey considered his job was complete when he retired from the CEO position at Telstra in 2015, the company’s stock market value had trebled.

What can we learn from David Thodey’s approach to change management?

David Thodey realized that it is imperative to support employee empowerment throughout the process of change. He ensured that he first empowered his senior managers, and then challenged them to empower their employees. He ensured that there was clarity in all communication about the transformational changes taking place. He created the environment where open communication was encouraged, and understood that people need to know that their fears and concerns are being listened to, understood, and dealt with.

Organizations that prioritize employee empowerment not only drive creativity and innovation but also improve talent retention, ultimately leading to greater business success.

Specifically, Thodey instigated change management in which:

Stakeholders were treated responsibly, as part of the future of the business. They were given opportunities to discuss change and be part of it.
Employees were provided the opportunities and tools to understand how the change would affect them. They, too, were given the opportunity to be part of the change, rather than a target of change.
All stakeholders were encouraged to realize the benefits of change.
Through his process, employees were fully empowered to become owners of the change, and did not see themselves as victims of change.

5 Strategies to Empower Employees

Providing training and development programs

Investing in employees’ skills and knowledge is crucial for empowerment. Offering regular training, mentorship, and development opportunities not only enhances their competence but also boosts their confidence in their roles. Employees who feel equipped with the necessary tools and knowledge are more likely to take initiative, contribute innovative ideas, and stay engaged. By focusing on continuous learning, organizations signal that they value growth and are committed to helping their people succeed.

Encouraging autonomy and decision-making

Empowerment flourishes when employees are given the freedom to make decisions and take ownership of their work. Encouraging autonomy helps build trust and shows employees that their input and judgment are respected. This can be achieved by involving them in decision-making processes, allowing them to solve problems creatively, and trusting them to manage their tasks independently. When employees feel they have control over their work, it not only increases job satisfaction but also drives higher performance.

Fostering a positive company culture

A company culture that values, respects, and supports its employees is essential for empowerment. Creating a positive environment where open communication, collaboration, and inclusivity are encouraged helps employees feel connected to the organization’s mission. This sense of belonging fosters greater motivation and engagement, as employees feel their contributions are meaningful and appreciated.

Recognizing and rewarding employees

Regularly acknowledging and rewarding employees for their efforts is a powerful way to make them feel valued. Whether through formal recognition programs, bonuses, or simple expressions of gratitude, recognizing individual and team achievements reinforces a culture of appreciation. This not only boosts morale but also encourages employees to continue performing at a high level, knowing their hard work is noticed and rewarded.

Providing opportunities for growth and development

Offering clear pathways for career growth and development is key to empowering employees to reach their full potential. When employees see opportunities for advancement within the organization, they are more likely to stay motivated and focused on personal and professional growth. This can be facilitated through promotions, leadership training, or cross-functional projects that challenge them to expand their skill set. Empowered employees are more likely to contribute to the long-term success of the organization, knowing they have room to grow and evolve.

Overcoming Challenges to Employee Empowerment

Empowering employees can be challenging, especially in traditional or hierarchical organizations. Common challenges include:

Employees may resist changes to their roles or responsibilities, particularly if they are accustomed to a more traditional structure.
Managers may struggle to trust employees with more autonomy and decision-making authority, especially if they are used to a more controlling management style.
Empowering employees may require additional resources, such as training and development programs, which can be a challenge for organizations with limited budgets.
Employees may be hesitant to take on more responsibility or make decisions if they fear making mistakes.

To overcome these challenges, organizations can:

Communicate clearly and transparently about the benefits of empowerment and the expectations for employees.
Provide training and development programs to help employees build their skills and confidence.
Foster a positive company culture that values and respects employees.
Recognize and reward employees for their contributions and achievements.
Provide opportunities for growth and development to help employees feel more empowered and motivated.

By addressing these challenges head-on, organizations can create an empowered workplace where employees feel valued, motivated, and engaged, ultimately driving the company’s success.

Employee empowerment as a tool of change management

Employee empowerment is a key factor in producing sustainable change in any organization. If your people feel isolated, unloved, and not listened to, resistance to change will snowball. Our change coaching and training programs have been designed to help break down communication barriers, and increase engagement through the process of change.

To discover how a Change Agent Bootcamp and coaching to empower your people will help your organization and leaders produce lasting change, contact Primeast today.

How Employee Empowerment Effects Change Management

What is Employee Empowerment?

Employee empowerment is a transformative management approach that grants employees the autonomy, authority, and resources necessary to take ownership of their work and make independent decisions. Unlike traditional hierarchical structures where decision-making power is concentrated at the top, empowerment distributes this power throughout the organisation. This shift enables employees to think critically, innovate, and solve problems independently, leading to increased job satisfaction, productivity, and engagement. When employees feel empowered, they are more likely to be motivated and committed to their roles, driving the organisation’s success.

How to Build Sustainable Workplace Change with Employee Empowerment?

The process of leading change is different from other supervisory functions which most managers have undertaken. Yet organisations often make the mistake of selecting an executive to lead change based upon their recognised management abilities. Such abilities are mostly disassociated from those required in change management.

Change is difficult for most people. They fear it. People who fear change become disengaged from it. When this happens, change fails.

Leading change requires a skill set that includes understanding how to empower employees in the workplace. By empowering people in the process of change, you accept that change is not simply a process. It requires a new way of thinking, a new way of acting, and a greater ambition to collaborate, engage, and innovate. When employees are empowered to change, the future vision is given new meaning. The vision becomes a shared goal, and empowerment enables the goal to become a sustainable reality. Employee engagement is crucial in this context, as it directly impacts the success of the change process.

In this article, you’ll learn to leverage empowerment in change management. As we compare the fortunes of two large-scale organisational change projects, you’ll discover how the chief executives of JC Penney and Telstra took very different approaches when their companies were suffering from declining revenues.

A Failure to Empower Employees Leads to a Failure to Change

Johnson seemed to be a perfect fit for the ailing JC Penney.

The benefits of employee empowerment are evident in many successful companies. Organisations that prioritise employee well-being and autonomy often see enhanced motivation, collaboration, and overall better business outcomes.

Benefits of Empowering Employees

Empowering employees offers a multitude of benefits for both individuals and organisations. Here are some key advantages:

Increased job satisfaction and engagement:
- Empowered employees feel more invested in their work, leading to higher levels of motivation and commitment.
Improved productivity
- When employees have the autonomy to make decisions and take ownership of their tasks, they tend to be more productive and efficient.
Enhanced creativity and innovation
- Empowered employees are encouraged to think outside the box and develop innovative solutions to challenges.
Better decision-making
- Employees who are empowered are more likely to make informed decisions that align with the organisation’s goals and objectives.
Increased employee retention
- Feeling valued and respected, empowered employees are more likely to stay with the organisation, reducing turnover rates.
Improved customer satisfaction
- Empowered employees are more likely to provide excellent customer service, leading to higher levels of customer satisfaction.

training group

Communicating change to empower employees at Telstra

Immediately he recognised that the organisation needed to change. But, instead of seeing himself as the sole commissioner of change, he recognised that all of Telstra’s executives, employees and customers were pivotal to change success. He set about empowering his 300 senior executives to work with Telstra’s employees, engaging all in the change project to promote employee empowerment.

Together, they developed training and one-on-one coaching courses, inviting feedback, managing expectations, and evolving people’s beliefs and values in line with those of the organisation. He put in place new recognition programs, which rewarded individuals and teams. He encouraged people to participate in a shared future.

To support employee empowerment, Thodey emphasised setting clear expectations, providing training, encouraging autonomy, and fostering open communication.

By the time Thodey considered his job was complete when he retired from the CEO position at Telstra in 2015, the company’s stock market value had trebled.

What can we learn from David Thodey’s approach to change management?

David Thodey realised that it is imperative to support employee empowerment throughout the process of change. He ensured that he first empowered his senior managers, and then challenged them to empower their employees. He ensured that there was clarity in all communication about the transformational changes taking place. He created the environment where open communication was encouraged, and understood that people need to know that their fears and concerns are being listened to, understood, and dealt with.

Organisations that prioritise employee empowerment not only drive creativity and innovation but also improve talent retention, ultimately leading to greater business success.

Specifically, Thodey instigated change management in which:

Stakeholders were treated responsibly, as part of the future of the business. They were given opportunities to discuss change and be part of it.
Employees were provided the opportunities and tools to understand how the change would affect them. They, too, were given the opportunity to be part of the change, rather than a target of change.
All stakeholders were encouraged to realise the benefits of change.
Through his process, employees were fully empowered to become owners of the change, and did not see themselves as victims of change.

5 Strategies to Empower Employees

Providing training and development programs

Investing in employees’ skills and knowledge is crucial for empowerment. Offering regular training, mentorship, and development opportunities not only enhances their competence but also boosts their confidence in their roles. Employees who feel equipped with the necessary tools and knowledge are more likely to take initiative, contribute innovative ideas, and stay engaged. By focusing on continuous learning, organisations signal that they value growth and are committed to helping their people succeed.

Encouraging autonomy and decision-making

Fostering a positive company culture

A company culture that values, respects, and supports its employees is essential for empowerment. Creating a positive environment where open communication, collaboration, and inclusivity are encouraged helps employees feel connected to the organisation’s mission. This sense of belonging fosters greater motivation and engagement, as employees feel their contributions are meaningful and appreciated.

Recognising and rewarding employees

Regularly acknowledging and rewarding employees for their efforts is a powerful way to make them feel valued. Whether through formal recognition programs, bonuses, or simple expressions of gratitude, recognising individual and team achievements reinforces a culture of appreciation. This not only boosts morale but also encourages employees to continue performing at a high level, knowing their hard work is noticed and rewarded.

Providing opportunities for growth and development

Offering clear pathways for career growth and development is key to empowering employees to reach their full potential. When employees see opportunities for advancement within the organisation, they are more likely to stay motivated and focused on personal and professional growth. This can be facilitated through promotions, leadership training, or cross-functional projects that challenge them to expand their skill set. Empowered employees are more likely to contribute to the long-term success of the organisation, knowing they have room to grow and evolve.

Overcoming Challenges to Employee Empowerment

Empowering employees can be challenging, especially in traditional or hierarchical organisations. Common challenges include:

Employees may resist changes to their roles or responsibilities, particularly if they are accustomed to a more traditional structure.
Managers may struggle to trust employees with more autonomy and decision-making authority, especially if they are used to a more controlling management style.
Empowering employees may require additional resources, such as training and development programs, which can be a challenge for organisations with limited budgets.
Employees may be hesitant to take on more responsibility or make decisions if they fear making mistakes.

To overcome these challenges, organisations can:

Communicate clearly and transparently about the benefits of empowerment and the expectations for employees.
Provide training and development programs to help employees build their skills and confidence.
Foster a positive company culture that values and respects employees.
Recognise and reward employees for their contributions and achievements.
Provide opportunities for growth and development to help employees feel more empowered and motivated.

By addressing these challenges head-on, organisations can create an empowered workplace where employees feel valued, motivated, and engaged, ultimately driving the company’s success.

Employee empowerment as a tool of change management

Employee empowerment is a key factor in producing sustainable change in any organisation. If your people feel isolated, unloved, and not listened to, resistance to change will snowball. Our change coaching and training programs have been designed to help break down communication barriers, and increase engagement through the process of change.

To discover how a Change Agent Bootcamp and coaching to empower your people will help your organisation and leaders produce lasting change, contact Primeast today.

Diversity and Inclusion Deliver Change Management Success

Diversity and Change Management: How Inclusion Delivers Success

Attitudes toward organizational change often sit at two extremes. Some view change with dread, feeling threatened and fearful, resistant to leaving the familiar behind. Others embrace change, seeing it as a chance for creativity and new opportunities. Energized by potential, they revel in its risks.

These extremes reflect responses shaped by personal culture, experiences, upbringing, and mindset. Failed change projects are often blamed on poor training, insufficient explanation, or the overwhelming pace and scope of change. The key question is how to lead diverse attitudes effectively through times of change.

Building an inclusive workplace starts with a strong culture that values diversity and encourages engagement. This creates an environment where all voices are heard, enhancing team dynamics and overall performance.

Building an Inclusive Workplace Culture

An inclusive workplace culture creates a positive, productive environment by valuing diversity, promoting equality, and fostering belonging. To build this culture, companies can start with a clear vision and mission emphasizing diversity and inclusion, supported by a strategy with specific goals and objectives.

Companies can promote inclusion by offering diversity training, encouraging open communication, and fostering active listening. Creating employee resource groups also supports employees from diverse backgrounds, building a sense of community and belonging.

Prioritising an inclusive culture empowers employees to contribute their best work, fostering greater innovation and productivity.

Inclusivity & diversity in Teams

Valuing diversity and workplace inclusion energizes effective change

A 2015 McKinsey report titled ‘Why Diversity Matters’’ found that businesses with higher levels of diversity outperform others by up to 15%. This outperformance is explained by what diversity brings to the table.

By employing a diverse range of people (different genders, backgrounds, ages, personalities, races, and so on), an organization gives itself the potential to discover more creative solutions and become more welcoming to an increasingly diverse customer base. A diverse team includes employees from various backgrounds, cultures, and generations, enhancing the talent pool and reducing recruiting costs. To unlock this potential, diversity must be accompanied by inclusion. People must be made to feel that their contributions are valued, and that they are respected as people, colleagues and employees.

Valuing workplace diversity energizes effective change. Especially through periods of change, diversity provides the impetus to discover innovative solutions, making teams more inventive and agile, and thus aiding the breaking down of resistance to change.

Creating a Diverse Workforce

A diverse workforce drives innovation, improves decision-making, and enhances business performance. By uniting individuals with varied backgrounds and perspectives, diversity fosters fresh ideas and solutions.

To build a diverse workforce, companies can use inclusive hiring practices like blind resume screening to reduce bias and expand the candidate pool. This approach evaluates candidates based on skills rather than background. Providing diversity and inclusion training further reinforces the importance of a diverse team.

Embracing diverse hiring and an inclusive culture attracts top talent, driving innovation and business success.

Combating cultural conflicts in change management

In any multicultural setting, there is bound to be some conflict. How leaders deal with this is crucial to creating a forum where such conflict becomes a force for greater innovation and creativity. Implementing inclusive behaviors, such as providing equal access to resources and establishing safe spaces for all team members, is essential. It is essential that leaders eliminate their unconscious bias, and take a care-fronting approach to conflict resolution.

Inclusive Workplace Practices

Inclusive workplace practices are essential for creating a positive and productive work environment. Inclusive practices can include flexible work arrangements, such as telecommuting or flexible hours, to promote work-life balance and increase employee satisfaction.

Companies can also implement inclusive practices, such as employee resource groups, to provide support and resources for employees from diverse backgrounds. These groups can help create a sense of community and belonging, making employees feel valued and respected. Additionally, companies can promote open communication and feedback, and encourage active listening to foster a sense of belonging among all employees.

By adopting inclusive workplace practices, companies can create an environment where all employees feel supported and empowered to contribute their best work, leading to increased innovation and productivity.

Group of diverse people standing in front of a brick wall

Strategies for Fostering an Inclusive Culture

Fostering an inclusive culture requires a strategic approach that involves multiple stakeholders and departments. Companies can start by establishing a clear vision and mission that emphasizes the importance of diversity and inclusion. This vision should be communicated consistently across the organization to ensure that all employees understand and embrace the company’s commitment to an inclusive workplace culture.

Companies can also promote an inclusive culture by providing training and education on diversity and inclusion, encouraging open communication and feedback, and promoting active listening. Additionally, companies can create employee resource groups to provide support and resources for employees from diverse backgrounds. These groups can help foster a sense of community and belonging, making employees feel valued and respected.

By implementing these strategies, companies can create an inclusive culture that values diversity, promotes equality, and fosters a sense of belonging among all employees.

Are your leaders equipped to take advantage of a diverse workforce?

It is also essential that change leaders identify differences in approaches to work (for example, task-oriented or relationship-oriented), contrasting attitudes, and different skill sets. Communication styles between genders and age groups are likely to be different, too. As the workforce gets younger, change leaders must become more mindful of the mindset of the millennial generation.

Leaders today must understand that their diverse workforces have embedded assumptions and ways of thinking. These differences must be accommodated in the leadership approach. Communication in leadership is key – without attention to cultural differences, a leader’s verbal and nonverbal communication style can destroy collaboration.

It is crucial that today’s leaders possess the skills to manage across cultures. They must be good listeners, and have the skill set to discover hidden talents and employ them in situations that benefit both the employee and the organization.

Organizational culture should be developed in line with a diversity and inclusion (D&I) policy that encourages employee engagement across cultural divides. Opportunities for promotion should be seen to be equal for all, irrespective of gender, race or background. Teams should be developed purposefully, with diversity of members leading to healthy conflict that enables greater agility through change.

Overcoming Challenges to Inclusion

Overcoming challenges to inclusion requires a proactive approach that involves multiple stakeholders and departments. Companies can start by identifying the challenges and barriers to inclusion, such as unconscious bias, negative team dynamics, or a lack of leadership support.

Companies can also provide training and education on diversity and inclusion to overcome unconscious bias and promote a culture of inclusion. This training can help employees recognize and address their biases, leading to a more inclusive work environment. Additionally, companies can implement inclusive practices, such as blind resume screening, to reduce bias and increase the pool of qualified candidates.

By implementing these strategies, companies can overcome the challenges to inclusion and create a positive and productive work environment that values diversity and promotes equality. This proactive approach will help ensure that all employees feel valued and respected, leading to increased innovation and business success.

Embrace diversity and your team will embrace change

It is natural to be wary of change. Whether a person is excited by it or fearful of it, the risks are the same. As are the rewards. When an organization embraces diversity and inclusion, it prepares itself for change. Inclusion efforts, such as regularly reassessing hiring practices and ensuring all voices are heard, are crucial for fostering a supportive environment.

Divergence in views and perspectives, and discussion and debate in open and honest forums in which all are encouraged to take part and all voices are heard equally, leads to better solutions. Workplace inclusion, by promoting diverse experiences and providing equal opportunities, fuels successful change and helps to eliminate resistance to change.

Does your organization have a positive diversity and inclusion policy? Are your leaders equipped to manage multicultural teams effectively?

Contact us today, and discover how we could help your leaders and managers lead more effectively and authentically through periods of change.

Diversity and Inclusion Deliver Change Management Success

Diversity and Change Management: How Inclusion Delivers Success

Attitudes toward organisational change often sit at two extremes. Some view change with dread, feeling threatened and fearful, resistant to leaving the familiar behind. Others embrace change, seeing it as a chance for creativity and new opportunities. Energized by potential, they revel in its risks.

Building an Inclusive Workplace Culture

Prioritising an inclusive culture empowers employees to contribute their best work, fostering greater innovation and productivity.

Inclusivity & diversity in Teams

Valuing diversity and workplace inclusion energises effective change

By employing a diverse range of people (different genders, backgrounds, ages, personalities, races, and so on), an organisation gives itself the potential to discover more creative solutions and become more welcoming to an increasingly diverse customer base. A diverse team includes employees from various backgrounds, cultures, and generations, enhancing the talent pool and reducing recruiting costs. To unlock this potential, diversity must be accompanied by inclusion. People must be made to feel that their contributions are valued, and that they are respected as people, colleagues and employees.

Valuing workplace diversity energises effective change. Especially through periods of change, diversity provides the impetus to discover innovative solutions, making teams more inventive and agile, and thus aiding the breaking down of resistance to change.

Creating a Diverse Workforce

Embracing diverse hiring and an inclusive culture attracts top talent, driving innovation and business success.

Combating cultural conflicts in change management

Inclusive Workplace Practices

Group of diverse people standing in front of a brick wall

Strategies for Fostering an Inclusive Culture

Fostering an inclusive culture requires a strategic approach that involves multiple stakeholders and departments. Companies can start by establishing a clear vision and mission that emphasises the importance of diversity and inclusion. This vision should be communicated consistently across the organisation to ensure that all employees understand and embrace the company’s commitment to an inclusive workplace culture.

By implementing these strategies, companies can create an inclusive culture that values diversity, promotes equality, and fosters a sense of belonging among all employees.

Are your leaders equipped to take advantage of a diverse workforce?

Organisational culture should be developed in line with a diversity and inclusion (D&I) policy that encourages employee engagement across cultural divides. Opportunities for promotion should be seen to be equal for all, irrespective of gender, race or background. Teams should be developed purposefully, with diversity of members leading to healthy conflict that enables greater agility through change.

Overcoming Challenges to Inclusion

Companies can also provide training and education on diversity and inclusion to overcome unconscious bias and promote a culture of inclusion. This training can help employees recognise and address their biases, leading to a more inclusive work environment. Additionally, companies can implement inclusive practices, such as blind resume screening, to reduce bias and increase the pool of qualified candidates.

Embrace diversity and your team will embrace change

It is natural to be wary of change. Whether a person is excited by it or fearful of it, the risks are the same. As are the rewards. When an organisation embraces diversity and inclusion, it prepares itself for change. Inclusion efforts, such as regularly reassessing hiring practices and ensuring all voices are heard, are crucial for fostering a supportive environment.

Does your organisation have a positive diversity and inclusion policy? Are your leaders equipped to manage multicultural teams effectively?

Contact us today, and discover how we could help your leaders and managers lead more effectively and authentically through periods of change.

AI Change Management: How Artificial Intelligence is Revolutionizing the Field

Enhancing Opportunity for Change Managers to Become Change Leaders

The evolution of AI change management may prompt change, but it also changes how change management is conducted. For example, the cloud has enabled remote specialists to be engaged in a change program and have valuable input in real-time, addressing various ai adoption challenges. AI and change management requires a strategic approach to prepare and support employees during the transition. Artificial Intelligence promises to change the business world more than any other technological advance to date. It will also alter change management, especially the people side of change management.

The Impact of API on Change Management

Creating More Efficient Change Management

In the same way that AI is making task management more efficient, it also promises to make change management more efficient. AI enables organizations to streamline operations, leading to increased efficiency and productivity while simultaneously driving growth through innovative products and enhanced customer experiences. AI integration involves developing a comprehensive strategy that encompasses vision, governance, and change management to successfully adopt AI technologies.

AI allows the change manager to take corrective action before it is needed, as the technology uses the flow of real-time data to predict what will happen. Certain actions could be taken without intervention, with AI technology permitted to make changes automatically to avoid predicted issues.

AI-powered tools facilitate smoother transitions during changes while also addressing concerns about job loss due to AI advancements. In such an event, the change manager will be alerted to the change, rather than execute the change. This will accelerate the pace of change and help to ensure that projects are delivered on time and within budget.

Enhancing the People Side of Change

AI promises to enhance the people side of change management in many ways. For example, by relieving the change manager of the need to input reams of data, collate it and analyze it, the change manager is given time to focus on the people affecting the change and being affected by change. This highlights the importance of a robust change management process in overcoming challenges that hinder digital transformation initiatives.

Change management professionals play a crucial role in facilitating strategic work and providing leadership through various offerings, including training and executive consulting.

Mitigating the Risk of Change

AI plays a pivotal role in mitigating risks during change management by offering predictive analytics and real-time insights. It enables change managers to proactively identify and address potential challenges, such as employee resistance to change and operational disruptions before they escalate. AI tools like sentiment analysis can monitor employee engagement and detect early signs of resistance, allowing for timely interventions that ensure smoother transitions. Additionally, AI-powered cybersecurity measures help safeguard sensitive data, a critical concern during organizational change.

By automating routine tasks and analyzing vast amounts of data, AI allows change leaders to focus on the human aspects of change management, such as communication and training. This helps alleviate employee concerns about job displacement and builds trust in AI’s role as a complement, not a replacement, to human work. Overall, AI transforms risk management from a reactive process into a proactive one, ensuring that changes are implemented more efficiently and with greater confidence.

Removal of Organizational Hierarchy Restrictions

Utilizing the capability of AI, organizational change is no longer restricted by organizational hierarchy. Talent will more often be employed virtually, and switched in and out of a change project as needed – this may be for an hour or two at a time, with AI technology used to bring talent in more fluidly. The result will be a more agile approach to change, driven by data-driven decisions that leverage data analytics for improved understanding of customers and markets.

In such an environment, change projects could be handled at a greater pace. AI can analyze a change project, and match up the skills required at each stage using experience and learning from previous change projects. Where skills need to be enhanced, AI can match up required training with those who need to be trained, thereby boosting employee engagement through real-time feedback on engagement strategies.

For largescale projects, AI can interrogate data sources such as in-house HR files and LinkedIn accounts to identify those with the skills needed. This will facilitate building change management teams more consistently, matching individual capabilities to project needs at all stages of the project. Implementing AI change management as a crucial component of digital transformation and change management enhances organizations’ ability to adapt in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.

Change-management

The Future of AI Change Management

As the change project is progressing, AI technology can be employed to monitor meeting minutes, emails, documents, etc. to ensure that tasks are coordinated, issues are addressed, and risks are raised and managed effectively. On all these processes, the use of AI removes human bias, ensuring that all decisions benefit from identical logical thinking. Organizational change management is essential in facilitating communication and training necessary for managing employee expectations and building trust during the AI integration process.

AI will allow change managers to optimize their approach, enhance decisions, and accelerate the change process using the best talent available. Change managers will have more time to do what they do best – instead of managing the process of change, they will become leaders of the people side of change. Training programs are essential components of Organizational change management, equipping employees with the necessary skills to navigate an AI-driven environment and promoting a culture of continuous learning and development.

AI Change Management: How Artificial Intelligence is Revolutionising the Field

Enhancing Opportunity for Change Managers to Become Change Leaders

The evolution of AI change management may prompt change, but it also transforms how change management is conducted. For example, the cloud has enabled remote specialists to be engaged in a change programme and provide valuable input in real-time, addressing various AI adoption challenges. AI and change management require a strategic approach to prepare and support employees during the transition. Artificial Intelligence promises to change the business world more than any other technological advance to date. It will also alter change management, especially the people side of change management.

The Impact of API on Change Management

Creating More Efficient Change Management

In the same way that AI is making task management more efficient, it also promises to make change management more efficient. AI enables organisations to streamline operations, leading to increased efficiency and productivity while simultaneously driving growth through innovative products and enhanced customer experiences. AI integration involves developing a comprehensive strategy that encompasses vision, governance, and change management to successfully adopt AI technologies.

Enhancing the People Side of Change

AI promises to enhance the people side of change management in many ways. For example, by relieving the change manager of the need to input reams of data, collate it and analyse it, the change manager is given time to focus on the people affecting the change and being affected by change. This highlights the importance of a robust change management process in overcoming challenges that hinder digital transformation initiatives.

Change management professionals play a crucial role in facilitating strategic work and providing leadership through various offerings, including training and executive consulting.

Mitigating the Risk of Change

By automating routine tasks and analysing vast amounts of data, AI allows change leaders to focus on the human aspects of change management, such as communication and training. This helps alleviate employee concerns about job displacement and builds trust in AI’s role as a complement, not a replacement, to human work. Overall, AI transforms risk management from a reactive process into a proactive one, ensuring that changes are implemented more efficiently and with greater confidence.

Removal of Organisational Hierarchy Restrictions

Utilising the capability of AI, organisational change is no longer restricted by organisational hierarchy. Talent will more often be employed virtually, and switched in and out of a change project as needed – this may be for an hour or two at a time, with AI technology used to bring talent in more fluidly. The result will be a more agile approach to change, driven by data-driven decisions that leverage data analytics for improved understanding of customers and markets.

In such an environment, change projects could be handled at a greater pace. AI can analyse a change project and match up the skills required at each stage using experience and learning from previous change projects. Where skills need to be enhanced, AI can match up required training with those who need to be trained, thereby boosting employee engagement through real-time feedback on engagement strategies.

For large-scale projects, AI can interrogate data sources such as in-house HR files and LinkedIn accounts to identify those with the skills needed. This will facilitate building change management teams more consistently, matching individual capabilities to project needs at all stages of the project. Implementing AI change management as a crucial component of digital transformation and change management enhances organisations’ ability to adapt in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.

Change-management

The Future of AI Change Management

As the change project progresses, AI technology can be employed to monitor meeting minutes, emails, documents, etc. to ensure that tasks are coordinated, issues are addressed, and risks are raised and managed effectively. On all these processes, the use of AI removes human bias, ensuring that all decisions benefit from identical logical thinking. Organisational change management is essential in facilitating communication and training necessary for managing employee expectations and building trust during the AI integration process.

AI will allow change managers to optimise their approach, enhance decisions, and accelerate the change process using the best talent available. Change managers will have more time to do what they do best – instead of managing the process of change, they will become leaders of the people side of change. Training programmes are essential components of Organisational change management, equipping employees with the necessary skills to navigate an AI-driven environment and promoting a culture of continuous learning and development.

7 Strategies for Overcoming Resistance to Change in the Workplace

Organizational transformation is difficult

In today’s world, change is the only constant that surrounds us. In business, it’s no different. For employees, this can be difficult to manage and upsetting. When striving for a successful transformation we must consider the different perceptions of those initiating change, implementing it, and being impacted by it.

In this article, you’ll learn techniques to manage resistance to change more effectively. We explore the types of change, discuss what makes people react the way they do to transformational efforts, and describe strategic and tactical approaches to overcoming change resistance in the workplace.

Understanding Employee Resistance

What is Employee Resistance?

Employee resistance refers to the natural human tendency to oppose or resist changes in the workplace. It is a common phenomenon that can occur at individual, team, or organizational levels. Employee resistance can manifest in various ways, including decreased productivity, absenteeism, and negative attitudes towards the change. This resistance is often rooted in a fear of the unknown, a desire to maintain the status quo, or concerns about job security and personal impact.

Understanding employee resistance is crucial for any organization looking to implement change initiatives. By recognizing the signs of resistance early, such as a drop in morale or an increase in absenteeism, managers can take proactive steps to address concerns and foster a more supportive environment for change.

Why Does Employee Resistance Occur?

Employee resistance occurs due to a combination of psychological, emotional, and practical factors. Some of the common reasons for employee resistance include:

Fear of the unknown: Employees may resist change because they are uncertain about the impact it will have on their job security, roles, or responsibilities. This fear can lead to anxiety and a reluctance to embrace new processes or technologies.
Loss of control: Change can make employees feel that they are losing control over their work or environment. This perceived loss of autonomy can result in resistance as employees struggle to regain a sense of stability and control.
Fear of failure: Employees may resist change because they are afraid of failing or not being able to adapt to new processes or technologies. This fear can be particularly strong if the change requires them to develop new skills or take on unfamiliar tasks.
Lack of communication: Employees may resist change if they are not adequately informed about the reasons for the change, the benefits, and the impact on their work. Clear and transparent communication is essential to help employees understand and accept the change.
Cultural or social factors: Employees may resist change if it challenges their cultural or social norms, values, or beliefs. This type of resistance can be particularly challenging to overcome, as it often involves deeply ingrained attitudes and behaviors.

By understanding these underlying causes of employee resistance, organizations can develop more effective strategies for managing resistance to change and fostering a more positive and supportive environment for change initiatives.

Creating collaborative teams with collective goals

A short while ago I discussed the challenges and attributes of high-performing teams. In modern organizations with flatter hierarchical structures, these high-impact teams are smaller, more agile, and themselves structured to benefit from individual specialization without regard for a ‘pecking order’. Even though these teams are designed to provide maximum flexibility in a constantly changing environment, it is likely that an organization will still experience resistance to change.

Overcoming resistance to change in the workplace doesn’t have to be a constant battle in a market environment where businesses are in constant flux. With a forward-looking and proactive strategy, resistance is first reduced and then eliminated.

Types of change: operational change vs social change

There are two facets to organizational transformation. The first is operational (or technical) and the second is social. Understanding the difference between the two is critical to managing resistance to change in an organization.

Within the organizational context, operational change can be explained as what we do and how we do it. For example, in an auto manufacturer a production worker may use a manual spanner to fit wheels to an axle. If that worker is then given a technologically advanced tool to do the job, that change is operational. Instead of using his strength to tighten the nut on the bolt, the worker uses different skills. He must learn these skills, but the operation is the same – fixing the wheel to the axle.

In such transformation, you may also witness social change – the way the worker interacts with others and the relationships they have. It is this type of change that evokes the most severe resistance to change.

Let’s consider that the auto worker is asked to do things differently. This involves him learning a new skill. However, the reporting line and responsibility remain unchanged. The worker is responsible for his routine. He remains responsible for reporting issues. He continues to liaise with the department’s manager. The only thing that is really changing is that the worker must learn a new technical skill to do the job he has always done. This may cause some resistance to change among those who are unsure of their ability to develop new skills, but there is no resulting social change.

Now, let’s consider that the worker is not only required to do things differently but also must adhere to imposed working routines and has a new line of report – to a supervisor rather than the senior manager as before. This is a social change that completely alters the perspective of the worker.

Change Management

4 Reasons for Resistance to Change

In their work on resistance to change theory, John P. Kotter and Leonard A. Schlesinger concluded that there are four common situations in which people’s resistance to change germinates and grows:

Self-interest
Misunderstanding and lack of trust
Different evaluations
Low tolerance for change

Using our example of change, we can see how different types of resistance to change develop.

1. Self-interest

When someone believes they may lose something valuable as a result of the change, they are likely to resist the change. People focus on their own self-interests (every stakeholder has their own agenda) and not the best interests of the organization. Eventually this develops into group resistance to change.

In our example, the worker is losing his direct relationship with ‘the boss’. He feels that his voice is no longer heard, because of the new reporting line put in place. The worker will come up with reasons why the new way of doing things will not work, and small errors and any downtime will be blamed on the change.

2. Misunderstanding and lack of trust

A lack of understanding about the implications of the change is also a driver of resistance to change. An existing lack of trust between the manager initiating change and the workers expected to implement it exacerbates this misunderstanding.

For example, if the auto worker believes that the new technology he is being asked to use will reduce the time it takes to do the job, he may believe that his job is threatened – or that he will lose overtime and experience a cut in earnings – no matter what the manager says. Trust is crucial when making organizational change.

3. Different evaluations

This situation arises when people assess the impacts of transformation differently to their managers or others who initiate the change.

In our example, it may be that the manager initiating the change has access to information that the workers don’t have. The reorganization of reporting lines may be needed because of the need for closer collaboration with the engineering department. However, the workers on the shop floor view the change as another (unnecessary) layer of management and are suspicious that the supervisor’s real role is to micromanage the department as it prepares for redundancies.

4. Low tolerance for change

Some people fear change because they worry that they cannot develop the skills and abilities needed. This is particularly true of projects that require rapid change – the bigger and faster the change, the harder it is for people to come to terms with.

In the book ‘The Planning of Change’, authors Warren G. Bennis, Kenneth D. Benne, and Robert Chin also discuss how personality affects individual ability to cope with change – a theme that also runs through Peter Drucker’s theories on management.

The Change Curve

The Change Curve is another important model to consider when navigating organisational change. It highlights the emotional stages that individuals typically go through during the change process, from initial shock and denial to eventual acceptance and commitment. At the beginning of the curve, resistance is high as employees may feel uncertain or fearful about the change. As they move through the stages of frustration and depression, productivity often dips. However, with proper support and communication, employees begin to explore the benefits of the new approach, leading to gradual acceptance.

Change Curve

By the time they reach the final stage, commitment, employees are fully engaged, and the change becomes part of the organisation’s new way of working. Understanding this emotional journey helps leaders provide the right support at the right time, ensuring a smoother transition for everyone involved.

6 Strategies for overcoming resistance to change

Change can be a difficult process, but Kotter’s 8 Change Accelerators offer a framework to help organisations navigate it more effectively. By using these accelerators, leaders can address both the human and structural challenges that come with transformation.

For example, when a sense of urgency is created, people are motivated to take the first steps toward change. Without this urgency, complacency sets in, and efforts can stall. Building a guiding coalition is also essential – a diverse group of leaders is needed to champion the change, ensuring it is supported at every level. A clear vision must be formed to provide direction, allowing everyone to understand the goals and reasons behind the change. Employees across the organisation are then enlisted as part of a volunteer army to help drive the transformation.

Kotter's 8 Change Accelerators

When considering the strategies and techniques for reducing resistance to change, there are six broad areas in which organisations must operate.

1. Communication and education

Common issues that cause resistance to change include fear of the unknown and a misunderstanding of why change is needed.

People will only accept change if they believe the risk of doing nothing is higher than the risk of changing direction. Similarly, if people don’t understand why change is needed, they will question why you are changing something that they believe works well.

Communication and education about the change should begin before it is initiated. This will help your people to rationalize the change, and ensure that individuals and teams receive adequate information to make positive judgements, significantly influencing how much resistance to change will occur.

2. Participation

A lack of belief that the organization can make effective change leads to resistance to change. Likewise, when people aren’t consulted and change is forced upon them, there is likely to be more resistance. This is especially the case if people believe their jobs will be at risk.

It is critical that the stakeholders and those implementing change are involved in its design. A collaborative effort will engage people in the change, and in the identification of potential issues and solutions. People are far less likely to resist change that they have helped to create.

Many studies have shown that participation has wide-ranging positive effects during periods of organizational change. For example, a 2011 study (Change Recipients’ Reactions to Organizational Change: a 60-Year Review of Quantitative Studies) found that participation reduces resistance to change and leads to positive effects such as change readiness and acceptance, a sense of competence, a sense of control and better trust. Participation will reduce the stress that snaps your people’s desire to change.

Another participative strategy is to employ socialization, putting people before practice and ensuring that shared values crush resistance to change.

3. Support

Organizational transformation is usually accompanied by a change to routines, taking people out of (long-established) comfort zones. This may also lead to exhaustion, especially if the organization is subject to frequent change or business evolution.

Even if people appear to be accepting of change, it may be that they are simply resigned to it. Understanding how to overcome resistance to change is crucial; they must be given the support needed to enable new skills to be developed and ensure that change burnout does not become a reality.

Support requires managers to develop their emotional intelligence and connect with their people. Offering adequate support is also time-consuming, requiring trained managers and leaders to employ coaching tactics to be most effective when managing change in an organization.

4. Agreement

Resistance to change is also precipitated when people feel they will be negatively affected by its consequences. This may be because of a perception that their earnings or career potential will be harmed or that the rewards of the change are not worth the effort required.

To combat this type of resistance to change, an organization may consider offering incentives. Such incentives may include extra pay, improved benefits, or offering structured career plans. This strategy requires negotiation to reach agreement. The drawback is that such agreements can be expensive and do not guarantee engagement with change.

5. Co-opting

People become connected to the way that things have always been done. There are often strong emotional connections to processes and procedures that employees may have been at least partly responsible for developing. To bond with the old may require a Herculean effort.

One strategy is to co-opt those who may be most resistant to change into central roles in the implementation of change initiatives. This can gain the support of would-be resistors relatively cheaply, though it does come with a caveat – placing people who are deemed to be resistant to change in such positions could give them a position from which to influence greater resistance across a wider audience.

6. Coercion

Sometimes it is necessary to coerce people into accepting change. This is often the case where people feel they cannot learn the new skills needed or if they feel that change is a temporary fad that will be reversed.

Techniques for implementing change include wielding the threat of disciplinary action while insisting that people fall into line with required behaviors and actions. If speed of change is critical, coercion may be the only viable option.

A major drawback of this strategy is that it does not remove resistance to change, which may continue to bubble under the surface and result in a destructive atmosphere at a later date (particularly if the proposed transformation does not produce at least the outcomes promoted by the initiator of change).

Implementing Change

essential change management techniques

Implementing change in an organization requires a structured approach to overcome employee resistance. Here are some strategies to consider:

Communicate the reasons for change

Clearly communicate the reasons for the change, the benefits, and the impact on employees’ work. Transparency is key to building trust and helping employees understand the necessity of the change. Use multiple channels of communication, such as meetings, emails, and newsletters, to ensure that the message reaches everyone.

Involve employees in the change process

Encourage employee participation and involvement in the change process to build ownership and commitment. This can be done through workshops, focus groups, or feedback sessions. When employees feel that their opinions are valued and that they have a say in the change process, they are more likely to support the change.

Provide training and support

Provide adequate training and support to help employees adapt to the change and develop new skills. This can include formal training programs, on-the-job coaching, or access to online resources. Ensuring that employees have the tools and knowledge they need to succeed will reduce anxiety and resistance.

Address employee concerns

Address employee concerns and fears directly and provide reassurance and support. This can be done through one-on-one meetings, Q&A sessions, or anonymous feedback channels. By acknowledging and addressing concerns, managers can build trust and reduce resistance.

Celebrate successes

Celebrate successes and progress along the way to build momentum and reinforce positive behaviors. Recognize and reward employees who embrace the change and contribute to its success. Celebrations can be as simple as a team lunch or as formal as an awards ceremony.

Lead by example

Leaders and managers should model the behavior they expect from employees and demonstrate a positive attitude towards change. When leaders are visibly committed to the change and exhibit the desired behaviors, employees are more likely to follow suit.

By understanding employee resistance and implementing change in a structured and supportive way, organizations can overcome resistance and achieve successful change initiatives. This approach not only helps to minimize disruption but also fosters a culture of continuous improvement and adaptability.

7 Tactics to overcome resistance to change

Having identified the causes (or potential causes) of resistance to change in your workplace and the strategic approaches that your organization should take to overcome this resistance, the next step is to consider specific tactics and techniques for reducing resistance to change that your organization and its managers can utilize to eventually eliminate that resistance.

Leadership is an organizational imperative when managing change, and leaders who inspire a cultural shift in their staff have the greatest success in managing resistance to change in an organization.

In a 2013 PwC survey, nearly two-thirds of staff surveyed felt that a top leader is in charge of change management, and almost half felt that top leaders should be in charge of cultural change.

The good news here is that the same number of people felt that cultural change is also their responsibility.

The bad news is that only 14% saw any responsibility for change management falling on their shoulders. The harsh reality is that effective change is determined by having in place a corporate culture conducive to continual transformation. It is here that inspirational leadership in flat hierarchical structures is, perhaps, at its most potent.

How to Overcome Resistance to Change Ebook

Here are seven techniques for overcoming resistance to change in the workplace and helping to embed engagement in your change process.

1. Structure the team to maximize its potential

After communicating the change initiative, consider the strengths and weaknesses of each team member.

In one-to-one sessions, establish how the team member is best suited to aiding with the change initiative, and consider ways in which it may help the individual improve personal weaknesses while simultaneously taking advantage of their strengths.

Give team members appropriate roles and responsibilities that use skills to their best advantage, while also providing the potential for personal and team development. Such a personal collaboration within the team effort will help engage each team member in the change effort.

2. Set challenging, achievable and engaging targets

Be clear in guidance about goals and targets. Break change projects into smaller milestones, and celebrate achievements. Goals should be progressive and in line with values and beliefs.

Don’t limit the creation of milestones and measurement of goal achievement to the overall effort. While these are important team milestones that will help to motivate the team to continue with maximum effort, it is also important that you consider individual progress. Seek ways to anchor personal development to the creation and continuation of team goals along the change journey.

3. Resolve conflicts quickly and effectively

Utilize the seven methods of care-fronting to regulate and control communicative breakdowns. Encourage openness and honesty and engender an environment of mutual trust and respect.

It is imperative to engender a good team spirit, so you should consider ways in which you can do so. During periods of change, tensions may run high and personal anxieties will be heightened. Team meetings and team bonding sessions will help your people to understand and appreciate their colleagues more easily, especially if you ensure transparency of communication and a systematic approach to problem solving that encourages frank exchange of view to reach a collective and collaborative partnership.

4. Show passion

Communicate passionately and be an example of belief in the future vision. When other people see leaders’ behaviors emulating those required by change, they more quickly come into line with the new behaviors and become change advocates themselves.

‘Where leaders tread, others follow’ is an apt edict for executives to live by. Only by being the change can you expect others to onboard the new values and behaviors expected.

5. Be persuasive

Engage employees in change by being an energized leader. Focus on opportunities, and persuade rather than assert authority. Share experiences as you persuade change through stories that focus on positive change.

Train your storytelling brain to discover ways to explain culture, brand and the future vision with similes that help employees relate to organizational motives and goals.

6. Empower innovation and creativity

Give opportunities for feedback and remain flexible as you alter course toward your change goals. Encourage people to be creative, to discover solutions to unfolding problems, and to become part of the change process.

Remove the fear of taking risks by framing failure as an experience from which to learn, and a necessary step on the path to success. Help people to be accountable for their own actions, while also encouraging collaboration across silos. This will aid pollination of innovative ideas in an environment in which people develop greater knowledge and expand their professional capacity to think more creatively.

7. Remain positive and supportive

People find change unsettling, even though change is a constant in personal lives as well as professional environments. They will need the support of a positive leader who inspires free thought, honest communication and creativity, as personal and team development is encouraged.

Employees expect leaders to manage change. Inspirational leaders create a culture where change becomes the remit of all.

In Summary

Research has shown that resistance to change is a psychological and physiological reaction (“The Neuroscience of Leadership” by David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz). In short, you should expect resistance to change. Managing resistance to change requires you to first understand why people resist change, then identify the causes of their resistance, before considering your strategic approach and formulating the tactics and techniques for reducing resistance to change.

Equipping your leaders with a deeper understanding of the emotional effects of change is an essential first step. With better self-awareness and social awareness, leaders and managers are more able to inspire and influence through change – and develop a winning project change team.

9 Steps to Engage People in Transformational Change

The Kotter + 1 process of organizational behavior for change

The world of business is moving faster than ever. Technology usurps itself on an almost daily basis. Organizations need to compete harder than ever before to stay ahead of the market. Technology, rules and regulations, changing consumer habits and competitive pressures combine to make the need for change both necessary and inevitable. Yet people resist change. They fear it.

In this article, you’ll learn how organizational behavior can engage people in transformational change. Employee buy-in refers to the commitment of employees to a company’s strategic goals, which is crucial for executing strategies and enhancing organizational performance.

Organizational behavior in the leadership of change

While there are many change management strategies, most have their foundations in the eight-step model developed by Dr. John Kotter and described in his book, “Leading Change”. However, following this model will not be enough to create successful and sustainable change. Your organization will need to adopt and adapt the organizational behaviors required to engage employees in change throughout the process. Employee buy-in and engagement can significantly enhance company performance by fostering creativity, innovative ideas, and improving overall business outcomes.

How to Build a Strong Foundation for Change

Building a strong foundation for change is crucial for successful team buy-in. This involves creating a clear vision, emphasising the value of teamwork and collaboration, and giving team members ownership and autonomy.

Share Your Vision and Goals

Sharing your vision and goals with your team is essential for building a strong foundation for change. This involves clearly communicating the reasons behind the change, the expected outcomes, and the role each team member will play in achieving the desired results. By sharing your vision and goals, you can create a sense of purpose and direction, which is critical for team buy-in.

When sharing your vision and goals, make sure to:

Be clear and concise in your communication.
Use language that is easy to understand.
Provide specific examples and illustrations to help team members visualize the desired outcomes.
Encourage team members to ask questions and provide feedback.

By sharing your vision and goals, you can create a sense of excitement and anticipation among team members, which can help to build momentum and support for the change.

Emphasize the Value of Teamwork and Collaboration

Emphasising the value of teamwork and collaboration is critical for building a strong foundation for change. This involves recognising that team members have different strengths, skills, and perspectives, and that by working together, they can achieve more than they could alone.

When emphasising the value of teamwork and collaboration, make sure to:

Recognize and reward team members for their contributions.
Encourage team members to share their ideas and perspectives.
Provide opportunities for team members to work together on projects and tasks.
Foster a sense of camaraderie and teamwork among team members.

By emphasising the value of teamwork and collaboration, you can create a sense of unity and shared purpose among team members, which can help to build trust and support for the change.

Give Team Members Ownership and Autonomy

Giving team members ownership and autonomy is essential for building a strong foundation for change. This involves providing team members with the freedom to make decisions, take risks, and solve problems, while also providing the necessary support and resources.

When giving team members ownership and autonomy, make sure to:

Provide clear goals and objectives.
Give team members the freedom to make decisions and take risks.
Provide the necessary support and resources.
Encourage team members to take ownership of their work and outcomes.

By giving team members ownership and autonomy, you can create a sense of empowerment and motivation among team members, which can help to build support and commitment to the change.

By building a strong foundation for change, you can create a sense of purpose, direction, and unity among team members, which can help to build support and momentum for the change. Remember to share your vision and goals, emphasize the value of teamwork and collaboration, and give team members ownership and autonomy to create a strong foundation for change.

Earning Employee Buy-In for Transformational Change

9 Steps to Achieve Employee Buy-In for Transformational Change

Step 1: Create urgency

You must create a sense of urgency by gaining support, which compels the entire organization to want change. Discussing poor sales numbers or chatting about your competition won’t achieve this.

Organizational behaviors needed:

Identify threats and opportunities. From these, create future visions.
Encourage open and honest discussion. Kick-start the dialogue in team meetings and on the company intranet.
Engage your employees, and invite other stakeholders to participate – customers and suppliers, for example.

Step 2: Form a powerful coalition

Lead from the front, with your senior leaders and team leaders involved in influencing employees of the need for change. Identify change sponsors throughout your organization from all sources, and use these influencers to build momentum for change.

Organizational behaviors needed:

Forget about traditional hierarchies, and identify your organization’s natural leaders at every level.
Build a team of influencers, people from all divisions and with diversity of skills.
Accept your team will have weak spots, and strive to position the team to cover them or remove them.

Step 3: Create the vision for change

A clear vision of the future is needed to help all stakeholders understand why there is a need for change, and the ambitions of the change project.

Organizational behaviors needed:

Think in terms of organizational values when creating your change goals.
Ensure that every member of your change coalition understands these values and goals, and create a common future vision description.
Ensure that all members of the change coalition can speak enthusiastically about the future vision and change project with a common voice.

Step 4: Communicate your future vision

Too often, organizations tell their people that things are going to change, but never tell them why, how, or the benefits of change. The reasons for change and its benefits will need to be communicated loud and often. The message will have a lot of competition from ‘business-as-usual’ communications, and for change to be successful it must be a priority. Insights from a Harvard Business School professor highlight the importance of communication in strategy execution.

Organizational behaviors needed:

Be open about the change, encouraging people to talk at every opportunity.
Ensure your employees are versed in tackling concerns.
Focus all communications on the change, from performance reviews and training to operational processes.

Step 5: Remove resistance to change

There are many obstacles to change. The major one, and the one that could bring change to its knees, is employee resistance. Employees especially in the age of globalized markets and automation, can see “change” as code for “downsizing”. As a leader, it’s important to reassure your team that this isn’t what you mean and be able to speak to their fears. If this is what you mean by change then you want to address it head-on because there is likely to be further demoralization. You’ll need to structure your team to maximize its potential, employing change leaders and setting roles and responsibilities in line with their skillsets. However, there are other things that you will need to do. One crucial step is to encourage employees to express their challenges and provide solutions, which fosters communication and collaboration within the team.

Organizational behaviors needed:

Be passionate about the change and possibilities for all.
Ensure your leaders take a persuasive and not authoritarian approach to managing change.
Invite employees to put forward their ideas, and reward people for helping to make change happen.
Be prepared to restructure your organization and its compensation schemes to come into line with the future vision.
Encourage resistors to see the benefits of change, and act quickly to encourage their exit if it becomes clear there is no turning of their attitudes.

Step 6: Generate short-term wins

Aiming for a single big goal can be daunting and demoralisng. You never seem to make any real progress. It’s a little like setting a target to quit smoking, or lose weight, or write a book. Instead, set smaller short-term milestones on the way to the future vision (e.g. cut out that first cigarette, lose two pounds in the first week, write a chapter a week, etc.). Make the targets stretching but achievable, so that they have a high chance of success. Integrating employee recognition into the project timeline through regular check-ins, meetings, and feedback sessions can further enhance motivation and contribute to overall project success.

Organizational behaviors needed:

Open milestone-setting to all employees: make it a personal goal as well as a team goal.
Encourage discussion of the benefits of achieving each milestone, and let employees identify potential barriers.

Step 7: Consolidate wins and build out the change

Celebrate the achievement of each milestone, but never rest on your laurels. You have completed another stepping stone toward the future vision. You now need to build on this, by learning from mistakes made, identifying what went well, and incorporating employee recognition to reinforce the cycle of change.

Organizational behaviors needed:

Be open with all stakeholders, and encourage them to put forward their views and ideas.
Celebrate those wins in small ways, reinforcing the cycle.
Set the next goals by consensus.
Be flexible in your approach, and identify change leaders as they become apparent through the process of change.

Step 8: Set the changes in corporate culture for employee retention

When you reach the future vision you set yourself, you must ensure that new processes, systems, and ways of thinking and working become central to your corporate culture. Ensure that the benefits of change are evident in every corner of your organization, and that your leaders remain supportive of the change. Employee buy-in is essential for achieving the company’s success, as it fosters commitment to strategic goals and enhances organizational performance.

Organizational behaviors needed:

Discuss the change in team meetings, one-to-ones, board meetings, customer presentations… in fact, at every opportunity available.
Make the new values central to the hiring process.
Reward key members, change sponsors and employee influencers publicly.

Now that your change project has reached its successful conclusion, what next?

Step 9: Rinse and repeat

The only constant in business is change. As I discussed in the opening paragraph, technology, rules and regulations, changing consumer habits and competitive pressures combine to make the need for change both necessary and inevitable. The world of business is an ever-changing landscape. Just because you have completed a largescale transformational change successfully, does not mean that further change is unnecessary. Distributing tasks and responsibilities within the team is crucial to adapt to these changes. By doing so, managers can remove all the responsibility from a single employee, allowing the entire team to collaborate effectively and enhance overall performance.

Organizational behaviors needed:

Be open to ideas from the floor – your people and salespeople will prove key to continuous change.
Provide a path to employee empowerment – communicate openly, provide opportunity for improvement, share strategies, offer support, and be appreciative.
Develop cross-cultural understanding.
Ensure that leaders and managers encourage feedback and behavioral explanations.

How to Create Autonomous Teams

What is an Autonomous Team?

An autonomous team is a group of individuals who have the freedom to manage their own work and working practices with minimal supervision. This type of team is self-managed, meaning that team members are responsible for making decisions, setting their own goals, and determining how to achieve them.

Autonomous teams are often used in business management to increase employee engagement, motivation, and productivity. By giving team members the autonomy to make their own decisions, organizations can foster a culture of creativity, innovation, and accountability.

5 tactics to develop role autonomy and engage employees in change.

If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that organizations must be agile. Rapid change is sometimes necessary. It’s likely to continue to be so on an even greater scale in the future. This brings us to managing change.

A statistic that is often quoted is that 70% of organizational change projects fail. To improve the success of change management projects, it is essential for employees to be engaged in the change. Role autonomy is key to this. Why? Because autonomy empowers people in self-determination and creation – and people tend not to destroy what they create. Role autonomy significantly enhances employee motivation, as it empowers individuals to take ownership of their work and contribute meaningfully to organizational change.

What is autonomy anyway?

Workplace autonomy can be defined in many ways, but it boils down to empowering employees to shape their working environment and their working practices in ways that most suit them.

Of all common human traits, perhaps the one that compels us to find the easiest solution – ways to work smarter rather than harder – is the strongest. It drives invention and innovation. This thirst for creating easier lives has given us the desire to create everything we take for granted today, from the wheel to the world wide web.

Role autonomy allows people to thrive

The days of controlling, carrot-and-stick leadership are long gone. If you want your team to change, leaders must guide and inspire. Give them the tools to do their job, and allow them to design how they do it. Explain the results you need, give them guidance, and then allow them to finesse how they work. Contrary to how some managers think, your people want to do the best work they can – and they probably know more about the work they do than their managers.

As Jack Welch (who as CEO of General Electric during the last two decades of the 20^th century steered it through a period of colossal change) advised, “Place the best people for the best opportunities and to properly distribute the monies to the right places. That’s all. Communicate your ideas, distribute the resources and get out of the way.”

In short, providing autonomy to people in the workplace provides the environment and incentive in which they will thrive. This translates into good news for the organization, especially in times of change. To truly thrive, it is essential to create psychological safety, where employees feel safe to express their ideas and take risks without fear of ridicule or punishment. You give people the power to become involved in the change. This gives them the power to create the change. This level of engagement is key in strategies for overcoming resistance to change.

Autonomy is a tool of teamwork

Providing team autonomy within roles is not giving a carte blanche to individuals to do as they please. They must still be guided in what they do. The change process will have defined milestones and goals, and expected outcomes. Providing autonomy allows people to change lanes while staying on the same course.

Autonomy at work should be used as a tool to encourage collaboration. It is not about working on your own. It’s about understanding your own strengths and weaknesses, identifying help needed, and using the strength of the team to produce meaningful results.

The benefits of autonomy in teams for job satisfaction

People who are given the power of self-determination are generally happier, more highly motivated, and more loyal than those under authoritarian control. Autonomy creates the environment in which employee engagement flourishes. Autonomy in the workplace leads to higher job satisfaction as employees feel more fulfilled and motivated.

Happier, more motivated employees are less likely to leave and more likely to work toward collective goals. This increased motivation and job satisfaction directly contribute to higher employee retention rates. Other benefits include:

More motivation to learn and develop
Improved productivity
Greater affinity with organizational culture
Increased self-value
Greater collaboration
Improved creativity and innovation
Enhanced creative thinking and problem-solving abilities

How to Create an Autonomous Team

Creating an autonomous team requires a deliberate and structured approach. Here are the steps to follow:

Step 1: Communicate Your Overall Vision

Communicating your overall vision to your team is essential in creating an autonomous team. This involves sharing your organization’s goals, values, and mission with your team members.

By doing so, you will help them understand how their work contributes to the bigger picture and empower them to make decisions that align with your organization’s objectives. Make sure to provide clear guidelines and expectations while also giving your team the freedom to decide how to achieve their goals.

Step 2: Hire People Who Can Work Autonomously

Hiring people who can work autonomously is crucial in creating an autonomous team. Look for individuals who are self-motivated, disciplined, and able to work independently. These individuals should be able to make decisions, solve problems, and take ownership of their work.

When hiring, look for candidates who have a track record of working autonomously and who are comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty.

Step 3: Train Your Team to Be Autonomous

Training your team to be autonomous involves providing them with the skills and knowledge they need to make decisions and take ownership of their work. This includes training on decision-making, problem-solving, and communication. You should also provide your team with the tools and resources they need to work autonomously, such as project management software and collaboration tools.

By investing in your team’s professional development, you will empower them to work autonomously and make decisions that align with your organization’s goals.

Delivering the benefits of role autonomy, employee engagement, and employee retention

Autonomy in the workplace doesn’’t just happen by setting out guidelines and saying, ‘get on with it’’.

Autonomy is a cultural trait. It must be instilled by clear leadership, and inspired by people-centric management. Autonomy in the workplace fosters skill development as employees are encouraged to take on new challenges and responsibilities. Here are five tactics to encourage autonomy in your teams.

1. Provide clear boundaries of autonomy

Enable employees to develop their decision-making skills by providing clear boundaries of autonomy in which they can operate. For example, in a call center you may give customer service agents the autonomy to make decisions to a value of, say, $100 without the need to refer to a manager.

2. Support your people in their efforts

Don’t leave your people without guidance. Support them as they transition into autonomous mode. Supporting your employees helps create a positive environment where they feel valued and empowered. Ensure that autonomy is provided within process and procedural limitations, and back these up with structured handbooks, manuals, and cooperative supervision.

3. Develop outcome-oriented not task-based targets

To empower people to develop work processes and procedures that deliver improved results and higher productivity, move away from task-based targets and focus on autonomous work. Instead, help people to focus on outcomes. You want 1,000 widgets made each hour? Ask your operatives how they could deliver this.

4. Understand that mistakes will happen – and learn from them

To err is human. People will make mistakes. It is not the mistake that defines us, it is how we react to it. Develop a culture in which informed risk-taking is acceptable, and in which mistakes and what is learned from them are shared.

5. Trust your people

We may have saved the most important tactic until last. Autonomy can only exist in an environment in which people are trusted. Without trust, managers will feel the need to control. Without trust, employees will not act autonomously.

Team leaders play a crucial role in building this trust by providing the right balance of guidance and freedom.

At the core of trust is how you communicate – and this includes building trust in globally remote teams. Learn to listen to your employees and act on the feedback you receive. They are the ones who are most affected by change. Autonomous employees will help you affect successful change, because they are the ones who will be responsible for determining their own success.

To learn more about creating a change-ready organization, connect with Primeast today.

How to Create Autonomous Teams

What is an Autonomous Team?

Autonomous teams are often used in business management to increase employee engagement, motivation, and productivity. By giving team members the autonomy to make their own decisions, organisations can foster a culture of creativity, innovation, and accountability.

5 tactics to develop role autonomy and engage employees in change.

If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that organisations must be agile. Rapid change is sometimes necessary. It’s likely to continue to be so on an even greater scale in the future. This brings us to managing change.

A statistic that is often quoted is that 70% of organisational change projects fail. To improve the success of change management projects, it is essential for employees to be engaged in the change. Role autonomy is key to this. Why? Because autonomy empowers people in self-determination and creation – and people tend not to destroy what they create. Role autonomy significantly enhances employee motivation, as it empowers individuals to take ownership of their work and contribute meaningfully to organisational change.

What is autonomy anyway?

Workplace autonomy can be defined in many ways, but it boils down to empowering employees to shape their working environment and their working practices in ways that most suit them.

Role autonomy allows people to thrive

In short, providing autonomy to people in the workplace provides the environment and incentive in which they will thrive. This translates into good news for the organisation, especially in times of change. To truly thrive, it is essential to create psychological safety, where employees feel safe to express their ideas and take risks without fear of ridicule or punishment. You give people the power to become involved in the change. This gives them the power to create the change. This level of engagement is key in strategies for overcoming resistance to change.

Autonomy is a tool of teamwork

The benefits of autonomy in teams for job satisfaction

More motivation to learn and develop
Improved productivity
Greater affinity with organisational culture
Increased self-value
Greater collaboration
Improved creativity and innovation
Enhanced creative thinking and problem-solving abilities

How to Create an Autonomous Team

Creating an autonomous team requires a deliberate and structured approach. Here are the steps to follow:

Step 1: Communicate Your Overall Vision

Communicating your overall vision to your team is essential in creating an autonomous team. This involves sharing your organisation’s goals, values, and mission with your team members.

By doing so, you will help them understand how their work contributes to the bigger picture and empower them to make decisions that align with your organisation’s objectives. Make sure to provide clear guidelines and expectations while also giving your team the freedom to decide how to achieve their goals.

Step 2: Hire People Who Can Work Autonomously

When hiring, look for candidates who have a track record of working autonomously and who are comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty.

Step 3: Train Your Team to Be Autonomous

By investing in your team’s professional development, you will empower them to work autonomously and make decisions that align with your organisation’s goals.

Delivering the benefits of role autonomy, employee engagement, and employee retention

Autonomy in the workplace doesn’’t just happen by setting out guidelines and saying, ‘get on with it’’.

1. Provide clear boundaries of autonomy

2. Support your people in their efforts

3. Develop outcome-oriented not task-based targets

4. Understand that mistakes will happen – and learn from them

5. Trust your people

Team leaders play a crucial role in building this trust by providing the right balance of guidance and freedom.

To learn more about creating a change-ready organisation, connect with Primeast today.

9 Steps to Achieve Employee Buy-In for Transformational Change

The Kotter + 1 process of organisational behaviour for change

The world of business is moving faster than ever. Technology usurps itself on an almost daily basis. Organisations need to compete harder than ever before to stay ahead of the market. Technology, rules and regulations, changing consumer habits and competitive pressures combine to make the need for change both necessary and inevitable. Yet people resist change. They fear it.

In this article, you’ll learn how organisational behaviour can engage people in transformational change. Employee buy-in refers to the commitment of employees to a company’s strategic goals, which is crucial for executing strategies and enhancing organisational performance.

Organisational behaviour in the leadership of change

While there are many change management strategies, most have their foundations in the eight-step model developed by Dr. John Kotter and described in his book, “Leading Change”. However, following this model will not be enough to create successful and sustainable change. Your organisation will need to adopt and adapt the organisational behaviours required to engage employees in change throughout the process. Employee buy-in and engagement can significantly enhance company performance by fostering creativity, innovative ideas, and improving overall business outcomes.

How to Build a Strong Foundation for Change

Share Your Vision and Goals

When sharing your vision and goals, make sure to:

Be clear and concise in your communication.
Use language that is easy to understand.
Provide specific examples and illustrations to help team members visualise the desired outcomes.
Encourage team members to ask questions and provide feedback.

By sharing your vision and goals, you can create a sense of excitement and anticipation among team members, which can help to build momentum and support for the change.

Emphasise the Value of Teamwork and Collaboration

When emphasising the value of teamwork and collaboration, make sure to:

Recognise and reward team members for their contributions.
Encourage team members to share their ideas and perspectives.
Provide opportunities for team members to work together on projects and tasks.
Foster a sense of camaraderie and teamwork among team members.

By emphasising the value of teamwork and collaboration, you can create a sense of unity and shared purpose among team members, which can help to build trust and support for the change.

Give Team Members Ownership and Autonomy

When giving team members ownership and autonomy, make sure to:

Provide clear goals and objectives.
Give team members the freedom to make decisions and take risks.
Provide the necessary support and resources.
Encourage team members to take ownership of their work and outcomes.

By giving team members ownership and autonomy, you can create a sense of empowerment and motivation among team members, which can help to build support and commitment to the change.

By building a strong foundation for change, you can create a sense of purpose, direction, and unity among team members, which can help to build support and momentum for the change. Remember to share your vision and goals, emphasise the value of teamwork and collaboration, and give team members ownership and autonomy to create a strong foundation for change.

Earning Employee Buy-In for Transformational Change

9 Steps to Achieve Employee Buy-In for Transformational Change

Step 1: Create urgency

You must create a sense of urgency by gaining support, which compels the entire organisation to want change. Discussing poor sales numbers or chatting about your competition won’t achieve this.

Organisational behaviours needed:

Identify threats and opportunities. From these, create future visions.
Encourage open and honest discussion. Kick-start the dialogue in team meetings and on the company intranet.
Engage your employees, and invite other stakeholders to participate – customers and suppliers, for example.

Step 2: Form a powerful coalition

Lead from the front, with your senior leaders and team leaders involved in influencing employees of the need for change. Identify change sponsors throughout your organisation from all sources, and use these influencers to build momentum for change.

Organisational behaviours needed:

Forget about traditional hierarchies, and identify your organisation’s natural leaders at every level.
Build a team of influencers, people from all divisions and with diversity of skills.
Accept your team will have weak spots, and strive to position the team to cover them or remove them.

Step 3: Create the vision for change

A clear vision of the future is needed to help all stakeholders understand why there is a need for change, and the ambitions of the change project.

Organisational behaviours needed:

Think in terms of organisational values when creating your change goals.
Ensure that every member of your change coalition understands these values and goals, and create a common future vision description.
Ensure that all members of the change coalition can speak enthusiastically about the future vision and change project with a common voice.

Step 4: Communicate your future vision

Too often, organisations tell their people that things are going to change, but never tell them why, how, or the benefits of change. The reasons for change and its benefits will need to be communicated loud and often. The message will have a lot of competition from ‘business-as-usual’ communications, and for change to be successful it must be a priority. Insights from a Harvard Business School professor highlight the importance of communication in strategy execution.

Organisational behaviours needed:

Be open about the change, encouraging people to talk at every opportunity.
Ensure your employees are versed in tackling concerns.
Focus all communications on the change, from performance reviews and training to operational processes.

Step 5: Remove resistance to change

There are many obstacles to change. The major one, and the one that could bring change to its knees, is employee resistance. Employees especially in the age of globalised markets and automation, can see “change” as code for “downsizing”. As a leader, it’s important to reassure your team that this isn’t what you mean and be able to speak to their fears. If this is what you mean by change then you want to address it head-on because there is likely to be further demoralisation. You’ll need to structure your team to maximise its potential, employing change leaders and setting roles and responsibilities in line with their skillsets. However, there are other things that you will need to do. One crucial step is to encourage employees to express their challenges and provide solutions, which fosters communication and collaboration within the team.

Organisational behaviours needed:

Be passionate about the change and possibilities for all.
Ensure your leaders take a persuasive and not authoritarian approach to managing change.
Invite employees to put forward their ideas, and reward people for helping to make change happen.
Be prepared to restructure your organisation and its compensation schemes to come into line with the future vision.
Encourage resistors to see the benefits of change, and act quickly to encourage their exit if it becomes clear there is no turning of their attitudes.

Step 6: Generate short-term wins

Organisational behaviours needed:

Open milestone-setting to all employees: make it a personal goal as well as a team goal.
Encourage discussion of the benefits of achieving each milestone, and let employees identify potential barriers.

Step 7: Consolidate wins and build out the change

Organisational behaviours needed:

Be open with all stakeholders, and encourage them to put forward their views and ideas.
Celebrate those wins in small ways, reinforcing the cycle.
Set the next goals by consensus.
Be flexible in your approach, and identify change leaders as they become apparent through the process of change.

Step 8: Set the changes in corporate culture for employee retention

When you reach the future vision you set yourself, you must ensure that new processes, systems, and ways of thinking and working become central to your corporate culture. Ensure that the benefits of change are evident in every corner of your organisation, and that your leaders remain supportive of the change. Employee buy-in is essential for achieving the company’s success, as it fosters commitment to strategic goals and enhances organisational performance.

Organisational behaviours needed:

Discuss the change in team meetings, one-to-ones, board meetings, customer presentations… in fact, at every opportunity available.
Make the new values central to the hiring process.
Reward key members, change sponsors and employee influencers publicly.

Now that your change project has reached its successful conclusion, what next?

Step 9: Rinse and repeat

Organisational behaviours needed:

Be open to ideas from the floor – your people and salespeople will prove key to continuous change.
Provide a path to employee empowerment – communicate openly, provide opportunity for improvement, share strategies, offer support, and be appreciative.
Develop cross-cultural understanding.
Ensure that leaders and managers encourage feedback and behavioural explanations.

7 Strategies for Overcoming Resistance to Change in the Workplace

Organisational transformation is difficult

Understanding Employee Resistance

What is Employee Resistance?

Employee resistance refers to the natural human tendency to oppose or resist changes in the workplace. It is a common phenomenon that can occur at individual, team, or organisational levels. Employee resistance can manifest in various ways, including decreased productivity, absenteeism, and negative attitudes towards the change. This resistance is often rooted in a fear of the unknown, a desire to maintain the status quo, or concerns about job security and personal impact.

Understanding employee resistance is crucial for any organisation looking to implement change initiatives. By recognising the signs of resistance early, such as a drop in morale or an increase in absenteeism, managers can take proactive steps to address concerns and foster a more supportive environment for change.

Why Does Employee Resistance Occur?

Employee resistance occurs due to a combination of psychological, emotional, and practical factors. Some of the common reasons for employee resistance include:

Fear of the unknown: Employees may resist change because they are uncertain about the impact it will have on their job security, roles, or responsibilities. This fear can lead to anxiety and a reluctance to embrace new processes or technologies.
Loss of control: Change can make employees feel that they are losing control over their work or environment. This perceived loss of autonomy can result in resistance as employees struggle to regain a sense of stability and control.
Fear of failure: Employees may resist change because they are afraid of failing or not being able to adapt to new processes or technologies. This fear can be particularly strong if the change requires them to develop new skills or take on unfamiliar tasks.
Lack of communication: Employees may resist change if they are not adequately informed about the reasons for the change, the benefits, and the impact on their work. Clear and transparent communication is essential to help employees understand and accept the change.
Cultural or social factors: Employees may resist change if it challenges their cultural or social norms, values, or beliefs. This type of resistance can be particularly challenging to overcome, as it often involves deeply ingrained attitudes and behaviours.

By understanding these underlying causes of employee resistance, organisations can develop more effective strategies for managing resistance to change and fostering a more positive and supportive environment for change initiatives.

Creating collaborative teams with collective goals

A short while ago I discussed the challenges and attributes of high-performing teams. In modern organisations with flatter hierarchical structures, these high-impact teams are smaller, more agile, and themselves structured to benefit from individual specialisation without regard for a ‘pecking order’. Even though these teams are designed to provide maximum flexibility in a constantly changing environment, it is likely that an organisation will still experience resistance to change.

Types of change: operational change vs social change

There are two facets to organisational transformation. The first is operational (or technical) and the second is social. Understanding the difference between the two is critical to managing resistance to change in an organisation.

Within the organisational context, operational change can be explained as what we do and how we do it. For example, in an auto manufacturer a production worker may use a manual spanner to fit wheels to an axle. If that worker is then given a technologically advanced tool to do the job, that change is operational. Instead of using his strength to tighten the nut on the bolt, the worker uses different skills. He must learn these skills, but the operation is the same – fixing the wheel to the axle.

Change Management

Reasons for resistance to change

In their work on resistance to change theory, John P. Kotter and Leonard A. Schlesinger concluded that there are four common situations in which people’s resistance to change germinates and grows:

Self-interest
Misunderstanding and lack of trust
Different evaluations
Low tolerance for change

Using our example of change, we can see how different types of resistance to change develop.

1. Self-interest

When someone believes they may lose something valuable as a result of the change, they are likely to resist the change. People focus on their own self-interests (every stakeholder has their own agenda) and not the best interests of the organisation. Eventually this develops into group resistance to change.

2. Misunderstanding and lack of trust

3. Different evaluations

This situation arises when people assess the impacts of transformation differently to their managers or others who initiate the change.

In our example, it may be that the manager initiating the change has access to information that the workers don’t have. The reorganisation of reporting lines may be needed because of the need for closer collaboration with the engineering department. However, the workers on the shop floor view the change as another (unnecessary) layer of management and are suspicious that the supervisor’s real role is to micromanage the department as it prepares for redundancies.

4. Low tolerance for change

The Change Curve

Change Curve

7 Strategies for overcoming resistance to change

Kotter's 8 Change Accelerators

When considering the strategies and techniques for reducing resistance to change, there are six broad areas in which organisations must operate.

1. Communication and education

Common issues that cause resistance to change include fear of the unknown and a misunderstanding of why change is needed.

Communication and education about the change should begin before it is initiated. This will help your people to rationalise the change, and ensure that individuals and teams receive adequate information to make positive judgements.

2. Participation

A lack of belief that the organisation can make effective change leads to resistance to change. Likewise, when people aren’t consulted and change is forced upon them, there is likely to be more resistance. This is especially the case if people believe their jobs will be at risk.

Many studies have shown that participation has wide-ranging positive effects during periods of organisational change. For example, a 2011 study (Change Recipients’ Reactions to Organisational Change: a 60-Year Review of Quantitative Studies) found that participation reduces resistance to change and leads to positive effects such as change readiness and acceptance, a sense of competence, a sense of control and better trust. Participation will reduce the stress that snaps your people’s desire to change.

Another participative strategy is to employ socialisation, putting people before practice and ensuring that shared values crush resistance to change.

3. Support

Organisational transformation is usually accompanied by a change to routines, taking people out of (long-established) comfort zones. This may also lead to exhaustion, especially if the organisation is subject to frequent change or business evolution.

Even if people appear to be accepting of change, it may be that they are simply resigned to it. They must be given the support needed to enable new skills to be developed and ensure that change burnout does not become a reality.

4. Agreement

To combat this type of resistance to change, an organisation may consider offering incentives. Such incentives may include extra pay, improved benefits, or offering structured career plans. This strategy requires negotiation to reach agreement. The drawback is that such agreements can be expensive and do not guarantee engagement with change.

5. Co-opting

6. Coercion

Techniques for implementing change include wielding the threat of disciplinary action while insisting that people fall into line with required behaviours and actions. If speed of change is critical, coercion may be the only viable option.

7. Building Trust and Aligning with Organisational Values

Resistance to change often stems from a lack of trust in leadership or the belief that the change is not aligned with the organisation’s core values. Employees are more likely to embrace change when they trust those leading it and see how the change connects to the organisation’s mission, vision, and values.

Building trust starts with leaders demonstrating transparency, integrity, and accountability. This includes openly acknowledging challenges, admitting mistakes, and consistently following through on commitments. Clear communication about how the change supports long-term goals and organisational values can help employees see the bigger picture and reduce scepticism.

By connecting change initiatives to the organisation’s core values, leaders can help employees align the transformation with their sense of purpose. When individuals feel that the change is consistent with what the organisation stands for, they are more likely to support it and invest their energy in making it successful.

This strategy reinforces engagement and fosters a collaborative culture, ensuring that resistance is minimised while creating a stronger foundation for sustained change.

Implementing Change

essential change management techniques

Implementing change in an organisation requires a structured approach to overcome employee resistance. Here are some strategies to consider:

Communicate the reasons for change

Involve employees in the change process

Provide training and support

Address employee concerns

Celebrate successes

Celebrate successes and progress along the way to build momentum and reinforce positive behaviours. Recognise and reward employees who embrace the change and contribute to its success. Celebrations can be as simple as a team lunch or as formal as an awards ceremony.

Lead by example

Leaders and managers should model the behaviour they expect from employees and demonstrate a positive attitude towards change. When leaders are visibly committed to the change and exhibit the desired behaviours, employees are more likely to follow suit.

By understanding employee resistance and implementing change in a structured and supportive way, organisations can overcome resistance and achieve successful change initiatives. This approach not only helps to minimise disruption but also fosters a culture of continuous improvement and adaptability.

7 Tactics to overcome resistance to change

Having identified the causes (or potential causes) of resistance to change in your workplace and the strategic approaches that your organisation should take to overcome this resistance, the next step is to consider specific tactics and techniques for reducing resistance to change that your organisation and its managers can utilise to eventually eliminate that resistance.

Leadership is an organisational imperative when managing change, and leaders who inspire a cultural shift in their staff have the greatest success in managing resistance to change in an organisation.

In a 2013 PwC survey, nearly two-thirds of staff surveyed felt that a top leader is in charge of change management, and almost half felt that top leaders should be in charge of cultural change.

The good news here is that the same number of people felt that cultural change is also their responsibility.

How to Overcome Resistance to Change Ebook

Here are seven techniques for overcoming resistance to change in the workplace and helping to embed engagement in your change process.

1. Structure the team to maximise its potential

After communicating the change initiative, consider the strengths and weaknesses of each team member.

2. Set challenging, achievable and engaging targets

Be clear in guidance about goals and targets. Break change projects into smaller milestones, and celebrate achievements. Goals should be progressive and in line with values and beliefs.

3. Resolve conflicts quickly and effectively

Utilise the seven methods of care-fronting to regulate and control communicative breakdowns. Encourage openness and honesty and engender an environment of mutual trust and respect.

4. Show passion

Communicate passionately and be an example of belief in the future vision. When other people see leaders’ behaviours emulating those required by change, they more quickly come into line with the new behaviours and become change advocates themselves.

‘Where leaders tread, others follow’ is an apt edict for executives to live by. Only by being the change can you expect others to onboard the new values and behaviours expected.

5. Be persuasive

Engage employees in change by being an energised leader. Focus on opportunities, and persuade rather than assert authority. Share experiences as you persuade change through stories that focus on positive change.

Train your storytelling brain to discover ways to explain culture, brand and the future vision with similes that help employees relate to organisational motives and goals.

6. Empower innovation and creativity

7. Remain positive and supportive

Employees expect leaders to manage change. Inspirational leaders create a culture where change becomes the remit of all.