Organizational Change

Let's say you need to move your business in a new direction. You are hoping the evolve the skill set of your staff, revamp your product and service lineup, and find new ways to partner with those in your industry.

So you've done a lot of research, worked through many different strategy ideas, analyzed the technological systems requires to make this change, and come up with a vision for your future. Maybe you've even created a PowerPoint presentation to communicate this change, and scheduled a roadshow to meet with each group in your company to get them on board.

But now, you are a few months into the shift, and finding it tougher to affect change. System roll outs are progressing, senior leadership has been working with you to revamp product and sales offerings, and others in your industry are impressed with your vision. And yet, the change comes more slowly than you would like, and at every turn, you find an entrenched business practice, a team that isn't developing as you had hoped - a ship that can't turn.

Organizational change is hard. It requires more than just the proper systems, technological savvy and strategic direction. Why? Because it's easy to get a room full of 100 people to clap at a PowerPoint, but difficult to align and balance the needs, fears, motivations, and skills of those 100 people.


Sure, we try to pretend that this doesn't exist. That every employee isn't motivated by logic alone, but perhaps some deeper human emotions. I don't mean that anyone has any ill-will, just that human beings are a funny bunch. And shoving them into a gray cubes and asking them to drink the PowerPoint Kool-Aid doesn't always have the intended results.


Below are some ideas to help organizational change:

• People Want Something To Believe In
• People Want To Be Involved, Not Managed
• Make It Seem Like Their Idea
• Personal Goals Must Be Aligned With Professional Goals
• Make it Easy to Feel A Sense of Achievement
• Make It Fun

So I'll ask you do you do these things in your organization and who leads the change, hopefully the keeper of the culture, the HR leader. Thanks to Dan Blank for some of this information.