Why Change Management drives ways of working

When COVID first hit, I was part of a large Change team in one of Australia’s biggest organisations. And as a team, we were tasked with helping to drive the new ways of working as the world went virtual.

Why was the Change Team expected to lead by example? 

I have no clue but I have a few musings…

Change is closer to the business 

The Change Team is often embedded in the HR function, Transformation function, or IT function. And in all these cases, the Change Managers themselves are often working directly on changes that directly impact the day-to-day processes of teams on the ground and their leaders.  Even though a lot of change is leader-led, the heart of change is where the rubber hits the road: the teams on the ground. So they are really well-placed to understand how ways of working may change.

Change is creative

Perhaps it’s because we have little authority and have to mainly influence, or because we are always trying to dream up new ways of getting people to actually read our communications or attend our workshops and training, but whatever the reason, Changies are a creative bunch. We think about the whole end-to-end experience, how to make it interesting, make it memorable, and make it useful… because there’s nothing worse than non-value-adding Change Management! 

Change knows that behaviours drive outcomes 

A policy means jack! What truly changes how a business works and functions is shifting behaviours and habits via processes, norms and responsibilities. Change knows that to achieve something, we need to look at the holistic picture and all the drivers and motivations and create opportunities to do things in a new way at an unconscious and emotional level. 

Change encourages culture shift

We know that culture is not easy to pinpoint (trust me, I’ve worked on global culture change!). And a huge part of how culture develops is through how we work. 

Are we agile?

Are we inclusive?

Are we flexible and adaptable?

Are we visible? 

Every single person in an organisation is different, and different roles, teams, divisions and even countries in an organisation can have vastly different cultures.

Change is trusted 

Again, because Change cares deeply about improving the experience of business teams, we are often trusted business advisors to the leaders of those teams. We are empathetic and solution-oriented, and realistic: we won’t gloss over risks and issues but collaborate to solve them.

Change supports others and will be early adopters

We Changies literally have no skin in the game other than to help the business succeed. So we’ll jump on board when you ask and champion what you expect and role model the new ways of working… because we know how hard it is to get other people to do that for us! Tit for tat, perhaps? But hey - we both get something out of it...

Now if you’ve worked with Change practitioners who HAVEN’T embodied the above qualities, that’s ok. There’s an old school approach to change and a new school approach to change and the latter is what I’m most passionate about rippling out into the world.

If you'd like to learn some creative ways to engage virtual and hybrid teams through your next change, come along to my free webinar "How to Lead Your Virtual Team through Change". Book your free spot via the link below:

CLICK HERE to save your spot on my free "How to Lead Your Virtual Team through Change" webinar

Lata xx