Organizational change practices tend to focus on the individual or the whole organization. Teams, however, are powerful forces that live somewhere in between. During change initiatives, a focus on impacted teams leads to higher change success rates. Why? Like individuals, teams become hardwired to survive. When threatened, a team will go the extra mile to stay intact. But with enough information and voice in the change, a team is far more likely to engage and become a resource.
So how do you engage teams in successful change?
When a team is trying to stay intact, it will protect its context and performance. Engage them in creating the new context and improving performance to reduce the threat so the team can be a resource instead of a source of resistance.
Creating the New Context
Does your organizational change require a change in…
- Team setting (the purpose it serves for the business)? Involve the impacted team in the creation of the new setting from the beginning. Explain why the change is necessary and allow them to be part of creating the new future.
- Team design (how the team works)? Invite them to explore the new work it needs to accomplish and use their insights to redesign the team – it’s likely this approach will yield a better design than may have been accomplished by leadership alone.
- Team culture (a team’s behaviors or attitudes)? Take a critical eye to processes, rewards, and management relationships that might be influencing culture. These elements of the organization are more tangible, making them good levers for culture shift.
Improving Performance
Does your organizational change require a change in…
- Team expertise? Identify what skills and behaviors will be required for teams to perform well in the new context and work with them to create a plan for gaining the skills and establishing the behaviors required for the change.
- Team engagement (who they engage with day-to-day)? Changing who you’re asking people to work with day-to-day is among the hardest changes for people to accept. Take the time to prepare them for engagement changes so they can start building new relationships.
- Personality measures such as DiSC or MBTI can speed up relationship and trust building.
- Teams execution (the tools a team needs to execute its work)? Team members recognize a changed or missing execution need before leadership does. Get timely feedback from them about what they’ll need to execute the new or changed work.
Addressing these six team elements prior to and throughout a change initiative can be the difference between a successful, sustained change and a painful costly change.