Managing Change with a Human Touch

A client we worked with recently realised that - at one point in time - there were some 30 to 40 change projects running within their business, with no consistent approach being adopted in each instance. In addition to putting in place a process for managing the projects, the client also realised the importance of Leader and Manager behaviours, especially in dealing with the human element involved.

As a result, we developed a toolkit to help both Leaders and Managers support their teams in a consistent way and to give themselves the best chance of achieving good outcomes in what can be difficult circumstances. Some key elements of this toolkit include

• ‘See-Do-Get’ (Basic Change Model); Helping leaders to understand how the different beliefs people have about change will drive their behaviours and the results you get and how if you if you want small impact work on behaviours but if you want big impact, work on beliefs.  
• ‘Stimulus-Response’ Model; Enabling people to ‘choose their response’ and work at the limits of their influence during the uncomfortable process of changing what may be engrained habits
• ‘Circle of Influence; Circle of Concern’; A framework that allow us to be feel more in control during times of change, rather than feeling that what we do is driven by forces external to us
•  ‘Transition Figure’; Helping people with the personal realisation that they can have a positive impact during periods of change and enabling them to become ‘mature’ enough to do so. 

What's fascinating (and gratifying) when you then facilitate this content with people who are going through a change process within their business is that it does (much) more than provide them with tools and insights on how they can manage. What it really does is provide them with hope that they can navigate the process successfully and position themselves effectively to deliver on the new and different results that are being asked of them.