Creating sustainable culture change is like walking up a giant mountain made of quicksand… seemingly daunting and impossible at times. While it does take persistence and intentional action to sustain cultural changes within your organization, the consistent effort will pay off! One of the best ways to keep you motivated is to have an evolving change strategy. I'll share a quick example of what this looks like...
I recently worked with an organization that was restructuring to create greater clarity on job responsibilities. Rather than everyone doing a bit of every role, the team created lines of accountability between customer facing roles, internal roles, and support staff. We followed five steps to develop, implement, and evolve their change strategy.
I guided the team in aligning on the ideal outcome of this change and setting some key milestones and measures of success to ensure they were on track to achieve their outcome throughout the change journey.
We identified stakeholder impacts and needs, and created a communications cadence to target the unique needs of each stakeholder group.
Using the ADKAR Barrier point assessment, we identified "stuck" points throughout the change journey. We then used a variety of change tactics to remove barriers for each stakeholder group.
Consistent meetings as a team helped us discuss the challenges, we were experiencing that might block us from achieving our outcome and celebrate the signs of progress. Based on this learning, we added, changed, and reworked our change strategy.
After reaching each milestone, we presented a report to senior leaders that shared success metrics and qualitative observations gained from listening sessions and stakeholder interviews to provide a real time assessment of our success.
The result = a high performing team with greater role clarity and a culture of employees who felt engaged and understood how to collaborate with other teams to help the Organization achieve its overarching strategic goals.
Although this HRB article is several years old, it has some timeless tips about how to create long lasting cultural change through making it a movement fueled by passion. The 5 tips shared - frame the issue, demonstrate quick wins, harness networks, create safe havens, and embrace symbols remind us to oscillate between appealing to the head and the heart when creating a change movement!
To encourage you to get out of your head and into your body, try a 1 minute of shaking. Warning! - You will feel silly and weird the first few times you try this, so you might want to be in a private space.
Stand in a comfortable position and set a timer for 60 seconds.
Wiggle your body around to loosen your joints.
Start by bouncing at the knees and shaking out your wrists.
You might stick with just subtle movement, or if you feel comfortable wiggle your hips, shake your arms and head. You can even have a full one dance party!
Continue with this as long as you want, and when you are done take one deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth before returning to the rest of your day.
This practice is both fun and a great way to relieve tension in the body, and it reminds us to tune into our feelings and sensations throughout the workday.
If your team or an organization that you know is anticipating or currently experiencing a change, let's explore some ways we can help you sustain your change and gain adoption. You can schedule an exploratory call to begin the discussion!
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