Over the course of your change management project, a member (or members) of your team will get stuck at one point or another. While this is inevitable, it is imperative that you move the whole team through the change together — no one left behind.
The best way to guide your entire team through a difficult change is to provide resources to help them move forward when they get stuck. Some ideas for resources include office hours with project leaders, a counselor to talk through issues, a step-by-step guide for new processes, and one-on-one conversations.
While providing resources is a great start, you must create a culture in which people are encouraged to ask for help and rely on resources. Many times, team members do not seek help because they believe they will be perceived as weak or ineffective, which in turn causes them to fall further behind. Reach out to your team members often to remind them of the resources available to them and reassure them that they should be used freely.
Once your team gets to the end of your change management project, it’s time for a celebration! Your celebration can range in size from coffee for the entire team or a vacation. One project gave Amazon Echo smart speakers to team members as a unique way to say thank you for their hard work, persistence, and flexibility.
The size of the celebration is less important than the sentiment behind it. Your team worked incredibly hard to turn your vision into a reality.
Ending a period of intense change with a fun celebration or gift can also help change your team’s thoughts about change. Instead of seeing it as an ambiguous, scary process, they can remembering it as challenging, yet rewarding
Finally, make sure you run a quick debrief with your team to get honest feedback on the project and to get ideas for what can be done differently next time around. This first-hand feedback will help you, as a leader, to grow and learn, while helping the company continue to refine their change management processes.
With this, we mark the conclusion of our Change Management Blog Series. For more information on how Sublime can help your team cross the finish line together, drop us a line. We can’t wait to work with you!