Katie Reiach - Principal and Co-Founder, Talk Shop Media
“Outside your comfort zone is where the magic happens.”
Unfortunately for business, this magic rarely comes without discomfort. In the past two years, Talk Shop’s size and revenue have quadrupled. We were among the first in our business to adopt digital and embrace influencer marketing. From there we continue to push into new markets, industries and services. Needless to say, our team has faced no shortage of change.
Our growth has meant more systems and monitoring for efficiency – frankly nothing employees want to get out of bed for. In order to make these changes, we opted to explain our why and then challenge potential resistance before it started.
These steps helped us immensely:
• Explain your why: Through our internal communication we explained why we are doing this and how the change impacted both outcomes and each role. When our team understands why and how it impacts them, we see stronger engagement.
• Communicate more: We now implement a multi-tier communication structure for all major decisions. In spite of thinking we were fully transparent, many employees still had questions surrounding how decisions got made.
• Practice what you preach: Implementing essential new technology showed us that many systems we were asking our team to adopt, we had not even adopted.
Dave Weisbeck - Chief Strategy Officer, Visier
When it comes to reducing resistance to change, I have two natural predispositions that experience has taught me to challenge.
The first is the inclination to explain all of the reasons for the change: to go into the details of what benefit or reasoning has led to the conclusion that the change is necessary.
However, as I’ve learned over the years, many care less about the why, and more about the precise details on what is different and how the change will impact them.
While some will want to understand the reasons for the change (and will figure out the implications for themselves), others don’t need to know the why, but are uncomfortable if they are not taken through what the change will mean for them personally. The key is to listen to the individuals in your organization and ensure you are addressing the what and the why to the right audience.
The second inclination is to focus on the detractors. The general rule is that 20% will be excited about the change, 20% will be detractors and 60% will be uncertain.
By bringing as many of the 60% over to the side of being a change advocate, you can create broad support that drowns out the detractors’ voices. Not only are the detractors a smaller population, but they are the hardest – and sometimes impossible – audience to win over, and you risk wasting time and effort for little gain.
Chris Jerome - Founder and CEO, Hawkers Wharf
I wouldn’t say there’s a lot of resistance to change within our organization.
As an entrepreneurial startup, we have cultivated a talented team based not only on technical expertise but also on personality fit for our unique environment.
We are made up of change-makers, individuals who wish to disrupt the status quo and create something that doesn’t exist locally. I guess you could say we aren’t all that resistant to change on the whole.
What does make a difference is how our team chooses to communicate internally. By promoting transparent, non-hierarchical communication within our core team we facilitate open dialogue and sharing of ideas, strategy and relationships.
We value ideas over position, meaning it’s open season around the table. This fosters an atmosphere of inclusion, of trust, and that means ideas come and go freely, gaining momentum based on worth.
There is nothing so certain as the inevitability of change. Anticipating it, knowing that it’s a constant, can help transform the conversation before it begins by removing some of the fear factor that comes along with the unknown.
Once expectations are forgotten, change brings opportunity and that’s what we focus on. We are also realists and pragmatic about understanding the risks associated with individual changes.
Working to mitigate risks is a team effort, and that begins for us with open communication.
