Here are four steps to driving strategic change in an organization: Have a change plan; share what’s in it for the individual implementing the change; get middle managers to share in their own words why the change is happening; and get quick wins and celebrate them.
No matter what promises you made to our board, how rosy a picture could look if you just made this one change or how dire your situation is, if the people being asked to implement the change are not on board with the change, it is never going to happen.
At its core, corporate change stems from a realization: The current path isn’t working. A new direction is needed.
Most people associate reorgs with negative experiences, because they often signify significant changes to the business.
Why have companies opted to remove middle managers in the first place? The simple answer is lack of perceived value.
That leaves time and reputation as the two biggest factors business development professionals must overcome to build trust and close the deal.
With the tightening of spending by companies and increased private-equity scrutiny around how budgets are spent, I believe a gap is widening between business development professionals who understand this information and those who don’t.
Layoffs are part of a business’s natural ebb and flow.
In most work environments, firefighting is inevitable, but it shouldn’t be your team’s primary focus.
One finding is that work orientation is fluid, meaning it can change over time.
Leadership happy talk stems from pressures, both real and perceived, to show the world and one’s team that everything is going great.
Imagine the workplace today. How much grace and patience do we give people to succeed?
The reason AI can be so powerful in this process is the immediacy of the feedback. Behavior change and positive habit formation occur when one’s pattern is disrupted, and the feedback received is immediate.
Overall, it seems there isn’t one work culture that is better than others. However, to be in the best work situation, I believe it starts and ends with having great leadership.
Regardless of whether a recession happens, the mere rumors of a recession can have a massive impact on our employees and their feelings about work, and managers should be considering how to adapt their leadership style to handle any economic worries by their direct reports.
The dearth of up-and-coming managers has led to greater turnover for both managers and the direct reports in their charge.
As more teams continue to work remotely, we must find new leadership methods that can ensure productivity without relying on visibility without context.
One thing everyone could agree on was that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for building an effective culture, but that, whatever culture you have built, it must be readily understood, inspiring, and not general and exclusively aimed to benefit the organization.
Management is a skill that can’t be learned in sprints; it’s learned through a marathon of consistent, focused practice on improvement. Consistency is the key.
One of the most important characteristics of strong managers who engage their team and help them feel connected to the work is their ability to conduct effective one-on-one meetings with direct reports.
