True leadership in organizational change goes beyond mere directives; it's about walking alongside your team, understanding their struggles, and aligning them with the company's vision. At Pintail Solutions, we explore the essential role of empathy and support in driving successful change. Discover how to truly connect with your employees and lead impactful organizational change through our latest insights.
Let's start with a quote from an unknown author. It goes, "Want to impress me? Tell me of your successes. Want to connect with me? Tell me of your struggles. Want to help me get better? Invite me to walk alongside you." I can't tell you how many times we see organizations try to drive change without walking alongside their employees.
Change is hard. For starters, no one cares about what you know until they know that you care. The change could make all the sense in the world. Most people won't behave differently until they know that you care, until you've walked alongside them. To understand what this change means to them in their day to day work, new measures and rewards, employee satisfaction, their contribution to the company, whether it's bottom line or mission driven. Really, what's their new connection to the why? You need to walk alongside your people to ensure they understand not just what they do and how they do it, but why they do it and how that makes a difference.
You need to continue to walk alongside your people, not just in the beginning. We've seen changes get announced with great fanfare from the pulpit, but they don't stick, they don't last. They're not adopted, because the cultural aspects of change are not addressed.
We worked with a tech company, healthcare informatics to be specific, and they were moving away from a business partner model to really a true services provider model. They announced from the stage what was going on and why it was changing with great charisma. No one actually spent the time to walk their employees through the change. Senior leaders did not walk with middle management to prepare and enable them to drive the change within their organizations. Oh, by the way, middle management is the most important layer in driving sustained change. That's probably for another day.
That quote again, want to impress me? Tell me of your successes. Want to connect with me? Tell me of your struggles. Want to help me get better? Invite me to walk alongside you. How are you walking alongside your team, your organization?
If you can get every person in your organization aligned to the strategy, moving in the same direction, and most importantly, connected to the why, you will do great things, I promise you that.
Pintail Solutions is a niche management advisory firm focused on enabling overall project and portfolio delivery, developing and deploying new business strategies, and delivering construction projects across life science organizations.
