Change Management.

What are the best brand images you can think of? Maybe it’s Nike’s iconic swoosh, the golden arches of McDonald’s or Apple (minus a bite), or. Nike’s logo says “speed.” McDonald’s huge glowing initial, flung high into the sky, beckons people from miles around to a guaranteed, hot, fast delicious meal. Apple’s logo represents the original taste of knowledge. Successful companies use these symbols to connect consumers to their brands. Of course, we brand our change projects too, for the same reasons. We want people to connect to the initiative, understand its essence, and buy in.

To develop a strong brand for your change project, answer these questions:

• What is it? If you haven’t already, define that vision and get leaders aligned.
• Who are we trying to reach? Identify the target audience for your brand. Who do you need to motivate? Define them. Are they end users of a system? Customers? Virtual global teams? How many? Where are they?
• What will make it stick? This is about audience and culture. What do they value? How do they see themselves? What was their reaction to previous initiatives?<.li>
• What are you trying to say? You need a core message. Is it speed? Excellence? Innovation? Making people’s lives better? Make sure your brand says that.
• What does it look like? The visual – logo, colors, mascot, tagline – comes last.
• Where does it go? Think about where your audience is, both physically and virtually. Break rooms? Employee website? Meetings? Project communications? Layer your brand message so it’s inseparable from the change.

My last tip: when in doubt, keep it simple. A good brand doesn’t make people think too hard; they just get it. A simple, strong, memorable brand will give your project the boost it needs.

Do you like to try new things? Of course you do! Ok, let’s put it to the test. Tomorrow, why don’t you try using a better virtual meeting platform?

Maybe you want to re-think your answer.

That’s okay, it just means you’re like the rest of us. We are hardwired to resist change. Part of the brain—the amygdala—interprets change as a threat and releases the hormones for fear, fight, or flight. Your body is actually protecting you from change.

That is why so many people in an organization, when presented with a new initiative or idea—even a good one, with tons of benefits—will resist it.

But there’s good news for organizations and individuals trying to change. By focusing on three things, we can overcome the psychological costs of change that keep us chained to the past.

• Dissatisfaction with the way things are now
• A positive vision of the future
• Concrete steps to make the vision a reality

In the 1960s, David Gleicher created a formula to guide us; Kathie Dannemiller later refined it.

Gleicher’s Formula

D x V x F > R

Dissatisfaction x Vision x First Concrete Steps > Resistance

In other words, the pain of loss is greater than the power of gain.

Gleicher’s Formula in Action

I used to meet a group of friends for appetizers or dinner at a local restaurant. We had been going to the same place for a little over five years. Every so often, someone would suggest we try a new place. We tried a new place or two, but we always ended up back at our regular spot. Then the management changed at our regular spot, and suddenly the service started to get worse and worse. Our orders got messed up, food took longer to arrive, and our checks were often wrong. Despite this poor service we stayed—we were resistant to change. Finally, our dissatisfaction with the service reached a tipping point (so to speak), and we started thinking how much happier we would be somewhere else. After some back and forth, we finally decided to change our Friday hang-out spot. We considered alternatives, chose one, and made a reservation.

Our (D)issatisfaction with the current place, multiplied by our positive (V)ision of the new place, multiplied by our (F)irst concrete step to actually move was much greater than our (R)esistance to change.

Needless to say, our new place was much better than our old place. The service was fantastic. The wait staff even helped throw a going away party for one of the guys in our group before he moved out of town. Looking back, it seems crazy we resisted changing places for so long. But it’s human nature.

Gleicher’s Formula Applied to Organization Change

So how can we apply this to organization change? Let’s say your organization is launching new technology that will impact many employees.

• Surface all the frustrations with the current system. Focus attention on how it causes trouble for users, costs the business money, and might lead to poor business performance that affects employees. That’s your (D).
• Describe or demonstrate life after the new system, including a better work life for employees and business success. There’s the (V).
• Engage employees in small steps toward the change, like choosing change leaders and engineering quick-win practice sessions for users. Now you have (F).

Changing is much easier said than done, but when we turn the organization’s attention to Dissatisfaction, a Vision of the future, and take First Steps, Resistance doesn’t stand a chance.

Source: Beckhard, Richard. Organization Development: Strategies and Models. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1969.

Let’s say you are lucky, smart and networked enough to take the reins of the next GE. Don’t just sell off the crown jewels to raise cash. While cash and positive cash flow fundamentally keep a business in business, a leader must have a vision and a strategy to survive.

To create a vision you must first describe your organization’s values and purpose. What do you stand for and why? What is your reason for being? The vision is the organization’s aspirations, expressed as a vivid picture. It is a detailed description of success – something bigger than the company that team members can understand and strive toward.

And what goals will help you achieve that vision? Your goal might be to be the #1 company in your segment. Your goal might be to disrupt your industry and dominate. Amazon has disruptive goals. It might not be the biggest player in every segment it disrupts, but it strives to disrupt every segment. If it cannot succeed, it will drop out and focus efforts elsewhere.

We have worked with many executive teams defining values, purpose, vision, and goals. What comes next is strategy, but many get confused about it. Many companies have a strategy function, but that function often focuses on marketing or product development or something else. A strategy is made up of the steps you take to achieve your goals – the goals that should be very clear before you approach strategy.

For instance, if you are sitting around at Walmart headquarters dreaming up a strategy to beat Amazon, here’s how you might think through it:

• First, revisit who you are as a company. David Glass famously said to a Wall Street reporter who asked him about being the world’s biggest retailer, “We’re a logistics company.”
• So then ask yourself, “Why is a logistics company that owns a lot of physical real estate competing with a company that derives all its profits from cloud computing?” So what does beating Amazon have to do with reaching your goals?
• The answer: Retail is neither the focus of Amazon nor Walmart; the two companies are not actually competing. Walmart manages physical properties, Amazon manages digital property.
• So should the strategy for Walmart then be to provide logistics for Amazon? Should you cooperate, not compete…?

The reason Walmart is not able to – and shouldn’t try to – beat Amazon in online retail is because they are not competing in the same realm. So beating Amazon is not a valid goal. Throwing billions after billions at online retail, like buying jet.com, is more of a reaction than a strategy. As Michael Milken says, digital technologies should accelerate your strategy.

So, in this case, you would step back from strategy and redefine your goals, then move forward again. There’s no point in paving a road to the wrong destination.

Strategy is operational – more than most strategists would like to admit. So, if you want to be #1 in retail, and you’re clear on that goal, what are the right steps to get there? If you’re GE and your goal depends on shrinking the footprint to dominate in only a few segments, what actions must you take? Why continue to invest in a money losing power business? Will that power business help achieve the ultimate goal – like maximizing shareholder value? (With the GE stock price at $14 per share the jury is out.)

A company strategy should lay out a roadmap toward your goal. Goals are the milestones and destination. The vision should paint a picture of what the world will look like when you get there.

Did February leave you feeling dizzy? A market correction is defined as a 10% downward movement in stocks from a recent high water-mark. Corrections happen with some regularity but – until last month – there hadn’t been a correction in over two years. The recent sell-off delivered a rude wake-up call to complacent investors. Stocks not only declined by more than 10%, they also fluctuated by 4% or more many times over several trading sessions. The movements were magnified by automated trading strategies betting on a long-term bull market with low volatility.
If last month reminded you of the beginning stages of the financial crisis, you’re not alone. Many of the so-called experts offered comparisons to prior stock market disasters. As Warren Buffett famously pointed out during the last crash, the emperor has no clothes, and you can always tell who’s been swimming naked.

So what type of leader would you bet on to lead your company out of a crisis? It depends on the situation and the leader’s style. Leaders can be characterized as Futurists, Disruptors, Administrators and Specialists. Each type has its strengths.

• Futurists like Jeff Bezos will bet everything today on a payoff tomorrow. This means taking huge risks and loading up on leverage to gain market share. Bezos was a first-mover in cloud computing, amassing massive scale by seeing the future of cloud computing before anyone else. IBM has desperately tried to enter the game, but did so late. AWS (Amazon Web Services) is now the most dominant player amongst cloud computing platforms and extremely profitable. When Amazon does report a profit, nearly all of it is from the AWS division, subsidizing the growth of online retail – the idea being that one day in the future they will dominate online retail and categorically start raising pricing.
• Disruptors like Elon Musk believe that any strategy is great so long as it is not the current one. They have no interest in maintaining the status quo. They create upheaval and uncertainty for businesses. But Disruptors like Musk can create the momentum to change an industry; he transformed the automotive, space exploration and solar power industries, but holds on to management control with mixed success. Jack Welch disrupted his industry to create an industrial giant that was either number one or two in every segment. Businesses that did not succeed were sold off. However, the empire was built with leverage and massive structural risk, leading to a near-collapse during the financial crisis.
• Administrators are complacent managers, like every one of the CEOs at Walmart who followed David Glass. Or Jeff Immelt, the Administrator who presided over the dismantling of GE after Jack Welch. Jeff navigated through the financial crisis and secured the survival of the company. Administrators will masterfully preside over a well-oiled cash generating machine. But, like Wells-Fargo’s Administrator CEO, they can fail to recognize the severity of a crisis and ignore it or try to sweep it under the rug. Wells classically mishandled their crisis of confidence by ignoring the obvious and keeping the same leadership in place across much of the company, even after the allegations came to light. Hoping a crisis will go away is not good change management.
• Specialists are not always well-known names. They are brought in to manage a specific set of circumstances. Specialists might focus on conserving cash during a financial crisis or reviving a company fallen on hard times — like John Flannery, the Specialist brought in to save GE by making tough and unpopular but necessary choices. Flannery has a rough road ahead, as he attempts to turn around a historic company, but he might just be the right man for the job. Ian Cheshire of Kingfisher navigated the financial crisis with distinction, focusing the company on conserving cash and investing heavily in people to keep customers engaged and spending. Kingfisher owns the largest home improvement store chains in UK and France, and eight other countries. Mary Barra of GM, managed not only to make GM profitable, but has positioned them to displace Tesla as the leading manufacturer of electric and autonomous vehicles. She made huge investments in alternative fuel technologies, including battery-powered vehicles and driverless car technology, to position GM as a leader for the future. She also restructured GM to be in a better financial position to invest in the future.

Each of these leadership styles is perfect for a certain situation. So who do you want in a financial markets crisis? You don’t need a Futurist – they follow a vision but might not last to see it through. Don’t rely on a Disrupter – they focus on change and doing things differently, but are not great managers. You definitely don’t want an Administrator — they fail to see disruption and don’t adapt well to changing business climates. What you need is a Specialist, focused on a short to medium-term horizon to stabilize the business and position it for survival. The lesson: pick a leader for the task ahead.

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Mark Fields, former CEO of Ford Motor Company

Fields popularized this phrase in 2006 but it’s also been attributed to business guru Peter Drucker. There’s no evidence that Drucker ever said this but no matter. Drucker did believe that a company’s culture normally thwarts any attempt to create or enforce a strategy that is incompatible with it.

But culture and strategy are inextricably linked. I like to think of them as a natural pairing. If we’re talking breakfast, they are like bacon and eggs.

Strategy provides the clarity and focus needed to move the organization forward. Culture is the unspoken rules, behaviors, and mindset that can advance or deter that strategy.

Many leaders are good at laying out the strategy and plans for execution but, because culture seems “squishy,” they overlook it. They don’t understand the power the it holds over their success.

Scholars anchor culture archetypes in Jungian psychology. (Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology.) But let’s not worry about the scholars or Carl – any observer of business can see that company cultures are different; your company’s reaction to strategy will depend on it.

Retail giant Nordstrom is known for its one employee rule, “Use good judgment in all situations.” That one rule empowers its employees to do the right thing without lots of policies and procedures. But a company with a “command and control” culture likely would not be able to deploy so much decision-making to its line employees.

A client company of mine was under-performing for several years. To address the problem, the Board hired a new CEO and CFO who were well known for their expertise in operational efficiency. Well, they helped clean up many of the inefficiencies alright but, as they did so, they alienated most employees. This company culture was “caring,” steeped in strong relationships and a prized work-family balance. The changes implemented by the new executives were disrespectful of the norms. They did acknowledge the culture but dismissed it as antiquated. Guess what? After a couple of years, the CEO and CFO were thanked for their contributions and fired. Next time around, the Board looked for a CEO who was more in sync with the company’s culture. He’s doing great.

Does that mean that a culture should never be changed, even if it is working against the sustainability of the company? No. But proceed with patience. Think of culture change as an evolution, not a revolution. If you decide it must change, it cannot be dictated. Saying so won’t make it so.

So, what do you do if you must evolve a culture to support your business strategy?

• Acknowledge the current culture: Understand what it is you’re trying to change. Use its strengths. Does your “caring” culture limit your speed? How about using the relationship part of “caring” to form innovation teams of employees who already know and like each other? Do a little reading about culture and how it can drive business growth. If you need convincing, the Harvard Business Review and other business journals have lots of articles on the topic. (See below.)
• Paint the vision: Clearly define where you’re going, using words that all your employees can understand. Stay away from language used for the stock analysts or PhDs.
• Engage the early adopters: Identify formal and informal leaders in the company who are solidly behind the culture shift and use them as influencers and role models. They can demonstrate the behaviors needed in the future culture.
• Engineer it: There are three steps. First, make it feel familiar. Use metaphors to liken the shift to something positive your employees know – like going from a flip phone to a smartphone. Second, give employees a sense of control. Explain exactly what is changing and how the change will impact them. The fewer surprises, the more safe and predictable the shift will feel. Third, orchestrate success. Create and celebrate small wins that demonstrate how people will work in the evolving culture. For example, help a department of technical support reps find a way to shorten call time – even a little bit – while maintaining the customer experience.
• Sustain attention: Align everything – organization structure, business processes, reward/recognition programs, etc. – toward the target culture.

Enjoy your breakfast.

To Learn More

The Leader’s Guide to Corporate Culture by Boris Groysberg, Jeremiah Lee, Jesse Price, and J. Yo-Jud Cheng, Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb 2018.

Mapping the Organizational Psyche: A Jungian Theory of Organizational Dynamics and Change by John G. Corlett and Carol S. Pearson, Gainesville, FL: CAPT, 2003.

“John Doe resigned for personal reasons. He is no longer with the company. If you have any questions, please reach out to your HR representative.” I remember feeling uncertain and curious after receiving this cryptic communication, a few years into my career. One of our cherished senior leaders had left without any warning or good-byes. The rumor mill was working overtime. All of us were filling the information void with speculation, including the possibility that he was fired.

At that time, I couldn’t fathom the overwhelming and negative response to an almost endemic workplace event. But now I know that the problem was not this change, but the way the change was communicated.

The problem is that the human brain sees unfamiliarity and uncertainty as a threat. Having experienced many workplace changes over the years, I’ve seen how potent good communication is in preventing that negative reaction.

Here’s how to elevate your communications during a change:

Provide Specifics: the reasons and outcomes.

✗ This is the new structure. We will need to downsize, but this will help us deliver fantastic results.

✔ We need to strengthen our core business to survive. The new company structure will make us more agile so we can serve customers better and thrive in this competitive market. We’re currently the third strongest company in our sector but we believe that, together, we can be number one.

Define Shared Success: the measurements and outcomes from the employee’s point of view.

✗ It will improve our core business which will result in higher profitability.

✔ It will improve our core business pipeline. We plan to achieve two-digit growth in three years, resulting in more opportunities and higher wages for our employees.

Keep it Simple: short, succinct and in simple words.

✗ We need to leverage each other’s strengths to make this organization a better place — not only for us, but for employees of the future.

✔ We need your support to rebuild our company.

Talk about the Support: tools, aids, two-way communication and training.

✗ I hope we answered all your questions and look forward to your support.

✔ We encourage you to send questions to the helpline. Your local leaders will be conducting town-halls and one-on-one meetings, starting next month, to keep you updated and hear your reactions and ideas.

(This one’s my favorite.)

Be Soulful: passion, empathy, respect for the individual, and aligned values.

✗ *Crickets*

✔ It’s a difficult day for our organization. For those who are included in the layoffs, you will receive severance and support as you move on to another job. For those who remain part of the company, you are our future and crucial to rebuilding the company.

As Rasheed Ogunlaru, a leading business coach, once said, “The only way to change someone’s mind is to connect with them from the heart.” Don’t be afraid to engage your employees. Transparency builds trust, and trust is key to the success of any change.

Thoughtful leaders find layoffs among the most stressful events they manage. Warren Heffelfinger, CEO of Ingenio, has a compelling story.

Hire the best.

In 1999, Warren and his college roommate Dave Riordan started a telecom business.

“It was a crazy time. Telecom was particularly hot; if you had a pulse and could dial a phone you could get private equity backing. The private equity guys wanted us to raise $500 million and hire 1,200 people over a 12-month period. Dave had five years of management consulting experience and I had never hired a human being in my life. So, we went back and said, ‘Listen guys, we’re flattered but you’re nuts. We need to hire a CEO.’”

“The single most important thing that we did in that business was, we hired a boss — the world’s most wonderful role model you could imagine. I would say that I learned 80% of my leadership skills from being joined at the hip with Tony DiStefano for six-and-a-half years.”

But then the market crashed. “We were in the epicenter of the dotcom meltdown. And raising $500 million? We couldn’t raise five cents after April of that year. We faced a gigantic round of layoffs in 2000. And that’s where Tony was the master.”

Err on the side of transparency.

“I had a view that great leaders are paternalistic — they sheild their company from bad news. It’s your job to do that because the company can’t handle bad news.”

“Tony helped me understand that it’s exactly the opposite. We didn’t get funding, our credit line was at risk, we had looming layoffs; all this bad stuff was happening. My gut was to lock Dave and Tony in a room and figure this out. Tony said, ‘No, tell them.’”

“So, we were incredibly open with our team about what was exactly going to happen. In September we said, ‘Listen, one of three things is going to happen: We’re going to find an investor, someone will buy us at the last minute, or we’re going to have to fire everyone. Those are the outcomes. We understand if you don’t want to stick around, but if you do, double-down and work your tail off. That will help us get to the best outcome.’”

“There was an initial shocked reaction. But then everyone was like, ‘Alright, let’s get back to work. We’ve got to work harder.’ It was a great lesson. When given a choice between sharing and not sharing, the answer is almost always: share.”

Tailor your communication.

According to Warren, “A significant percentage of the company sees a problem exists. A smaller subset sees the problem and will figure out what the right solution is. The smallest subset sees the problem, can find the right solution and how to communicate it. Communication is the hardest part. It’s not your knee-jerk reaction. It’s understanding all constituencies and how they are going to be impacted.”

“There are two important constituencies in a layoff: the people you are letting go and the people who are staying. The people who are staying are going take great lessons about how you communicate and how you handle the situation. What you hope for is, they say, ‘This sucks but at least if it ever happens to me, it looks like I’ll be treated pretty well…with respect, like a human being.’ That’s super important communication.”

Fire before Christmas.

“There were some very counter-intuitive parts of our layoffs. For example, we were facing layoffs around mid-December. My reaction was, ‘How can you fire people before Christmas?’”

“But Tony’s answer was, ‘You must absolutely fire before Christmas. Right before Christmas, people are going to Christmas shop and rack up credit card bills because they think they have a job. If you give them the bad news ahead of time, you let them avoid that mistake.’”

“’And, if we lay them off December 15th, they get a month of notice and greater severance. If you wait until January 1st, they only get two weeks.’”
The team followed Tony’s advice. What surprised them most was that people understood. Not only did they save the company, but Warren received thank you notes from people who were laid off.

Message based on the strategy, not the person.

Large layoffs are painful, but even the decision to fire just one person can be wildly stressful.

“There was one caustic executive who had a big personality. He was very smart, but manipulative. I was up at 3 a.m., nauseous, not sleeping, for close to a year because I knew he was plotting against me every day. And I knew that every time he walked into my office, something manipulative was happening. He brought benefits to the business, but the psychic cost of having to deal with him every day was extraordinary.”

“I learned that when you decide to let a toxic person go, you’re already six months later than you probably should be. But there’s nothing more liberating than the day you make that decision.”

“Still, you need to create a win-win. The conversation I wanted to have was, ‘You are a pain and caused me not to sleep, and you’re a miserable human being.’”

“But I parked my ego. I said, ‘Listen, I’ve made a hard decision. I’m eliminating your position. You played a significant role as we were transitioning. Now I believe our resources are better spent in other ways. There’s just not a fulltime job here.’”

“I said, ‘I’m open to handling the communication. I’ll handle it if you don’t want to but I’m open to other considerations.’ He thought about it and came back the next day with an elaborate spin on how he wanted to retire and spend time with his kids.”

“We had a three-week transition plan. I let him stand up at the all-hands meeting and drop the news himself. We had a going away party. There was no blow-back whatsoever.”

“Often, once you’ve made the decision a person is not a good fit, you radically overthink the impact of that person leaving on the rest of the organization. That’s my number one lesson to leaders and managers: when you know it, you’re already too late.”

Find your best possible outcome.

The fun of leading a business is accomplishing meaningful work with people we love. The worst part is when the business is struggling and we must make tough decisions. Warren, Tony and Dave’s decision to be transparent, take the employee’s perspective and keep their eyes on strategy helped people remain focused as they turned the business around. They found best possible outcome for a difficult situation.

Take confusion, distrust, speculation and a healthy dose of unrealistic expectations and you have the typical M&A environment. New leaders struggle to align and communicate the new direction. Teams are smashed together in reorgs that make sense only on paper. New systems add chaos to players who don’t know or trust each other yet. It’s painful but a few guiding change principles can lessen the agony.

Align, Message and Cascade…and Do it Quickly

A lot of money and thought went into why the merger or acquisition was important and how it would benefit the combined organization and the people in it. That message must get out quickly and it has to be delivered often and consistently throughout the organization. Specifically, people need to understand what they are moving from, what they are moving to, how they are going to get there, and how the end result will benefit them.

Albert Einstein famously said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” The message must be simple and concise, and that means the leadership team has to be fully aligned on the problem, the solution, the action, and the end goal. If the organization hears different versions of the truth from different members of the leadership team, they won’t trust or buy in to the direction.

Just as importantly, the message should cascade through the organization – not as a view from the top, but as a vision of the future for the listener. Select facts and examples that resonate with the people you’re addressing. Message framing is both an art and science.

Don’t Sink the Learning Life Raft

M&As are naturally going to create some level of redundancy, and rationalizing those redundancies drives a good bit of value to the new organization. As a support function, Learning and Development is one group you’ll be tempted to trim early on. Don’t! The combined organization is going to need every L&D resource they have, and then some. Your M&A rests on a foundation of new teams, new processes, new systems, new policies…all of which require new skills and knowledge. That’s the job of your learning experts! Once the change has been fully absorbed by the organization, everyone has been skilled-up, and new systems and processes are purring along, then it makes sense to look at the ongoing resource requirements of L&D, but until that time don’t even think about it.

A Cube with a View

It is amazing how often M&A projects are run as a series of separate activities, with little or no consideration of how they impact each team. Employees assume someone has thought through all aspects of the change – the people impacted, their roles, the timing, and the magnitude of changes that will hit them. That’s the expectation, but rarely the reality. M&A is complex and it makes sense to divide and separate the integration into multiple work streams. But once you have a high-level plan, look at the work through an organizational lens.

Focus on each team, one at a time. Think of the change as if you were sitting in the employee’s chair. Determine how and when they are impacted by each of the work streams. Can they expect new leadership? When? Will they use new systems and processes? When? What new skills and capabilities will they need, and when will they get the training? What is the communication plan for each team – what will they know, and when?

People view change from their own workspace. Their dominant reaction to the M&A is, “What’s going to happen to me and my team?” Only when we understand that can we answer their big questions, ease uncertainty, and show them a path forward.

Engineer the Experience

Successful change management initiatives engineer the win by focusing on the employee experience. “Familiar, controlled and successful” should be your mantra. First, make the change feel familiar to employees by comparing it to other programs they feel good about. Second, give them a feeling of control by sharing that employee-centered information on what’s ahead for them. Your goal for them is no surprises. Third, create employee interactions with small parts of the change – a new procedure, new terms, a new task – and make sure they’re successful. If your change includes new technology, build support into these practice sessions. Let people discover how easy it is to get help when they need it. Simulate a help desk and “white glove” support for managers, power users, and key influencers. As employees demonstrate to themselves that they can succeed, their resistance will lessen and their readiness will improve.

M&A is naturally difficult and messy, however, a thoughtful change management approach goes a long way to mitigate the pain and help the organization realize the benefits that were promised. In the end, it comes down to aligning on the right messaging, viewing and communicating the change from the employees perspective, and helping teams through the change with support and positive experiences.

To download a preview of Emerson’s Change Management Methodology, click here.

By Emerson Consultant, Kelley Egre

Weathering change is easier when leaders make it predictable. I am so relieved when my local forecaster accurately predicts bad weather. I follow their advice every day and I’d like to think they save me from many icy accidents and horrible hair days. But recently, the weather has been a source of real anxiety.

Multiple deadly storms ravaged our country this year. Just a couple of weeks ago, mudslides killed more than 15 people in Southern California. Without warning from local forecasters, the death toll could have been much worse. But 15 is still too many! These deaths may have been prevented with more time and/or information to better prepare. I find my thoughts often consumed by “What if?” and “What could happen in my own backyard?”

According to a study from the University of Illinois at Chicago, having an increased sensitivity to ambiguous, uncertain threats—or a heightened fear of the unknown—is at the root of a wide range of serious anxiety disorders. And change is high on the list of perceived workplace threats.

In today’s high-paced business environment, change is constant. Unless we are lucky enough to live with a psychologist, fears of failure or job loss can fester into visceral and unhealthy responses. In the workplace, that may translate into lack of focus and motivation. At home, it may lead to substance abuse, depression or anger.

To avoid a potential downturn in productivity at work, it is important for leaders to give their teams a predictable environment in which change is valued and expected. Though often wrong, predictions can give us a sense of control and a clear set of expectations. This helps us conserve our energy and more effectively prepare for the changes ahead.

How to Make Change Predictable for Employees

• Don’t surprise them. Be sure to give plenty of advance notice and involve them as often as you can with regular updates. This will give your team a sense of control, helping them plan for the change in their own way.
• Be specific. If people understand exactly what is changing, with details about how the change will impact them, they will feel more comfortable moving forward. Generally, people tend to go straight to the worst case scenario.
• Link it to what they know. Show them how it is similar to a previous and successful change. Be sure to use positive metaphors and examples.

When you think of LinkedIn what comes to mind? Once upon a time, I immediately thought of job postings, self-promotion, and professional networking. Sure, career advancement and networking are still the big benefits of LinkedIn membership, but it’s also a social network and a robust venue for professional development.

One way to stay in touch with your industry peers is, of course, to connect to them. Another way is to follow them. Following someone on LinkedIn gets you access to any articles they write, and you’ll also see that person’s engagement with other LinkedIn users. So, if you pick the people you follow carefully, you’ll be tapped in to some of the best thinking in your field.

Let’s say you are following President of Top of the Line Company in your industry. Whenever President comments on something or shares a post that he thinks is interesting, it will appear on your newsfeed. Simple! Following a LinkedIn user who is a thought leader in your industry gives you the latest thinking, professional development insights, and an opportunity to join the conversation.

No matter what the industry, there’s an influencer for you to follow.

Four Behavior Change Experts to Follow on LinkedIn

Trish Emerson – Emerson Human Capital

Okay, I’ll admit I’m a little biased, but the founder of Emerson Human Capital is the reason I became interested in change management. With more than 25 years’ experience helping organizations with major transformations, Trish is truly a behavior change guru. She routinely posts practical ideas for enabling big change through human behavior.

Eric Barker – Blogger and Author

One of my favorite bloggers is also an avid LinkedIn participant. His blog focuses on scientific ways “to be awesome at life.” (Eric’s words, though we wholeheartedly agree!) In other words, he talks about ways to change behavior and be more successful. Following him on LinkedIn gives me easy access to his prolific library of blog posts and LinkedIn activity to – hopefully – make my life better.

Nancy Duarte – Duarte, Inc.

Effective communication is essential to behavior change. One of the best of the best communicators is Nancy Duarte. Duarte calls herself a persuasion specialist. Her firm focuses on developing influential visual messages. She produces monthly blog posts and she’s a frequent participant on LinkedIn.

Kathy Caprino – Ellia Communications

I am a new LinkedIn follower of Kathy’s. She is a self-described women’s career and personal growth coach, writer, speaker and leadership developer. Most of her messages resonate with anyone looking to change. Many of her regular blog posts give suggestions to better oneself by altering (you guessed it) behavior.

Following these behavior change influencers on LinkedIn is as easy as clicking a button on their profiles. It takes no time to produce a steady stream of influential content – targeted directly to your professional interests.