Leading Organizational Change: A Simple Toolkit for Driving Purpose Through Evolution

• Organizational change is a vital facet of a company’s evolving strategy and structure; but without a human-focused approach to change management, results can feel misguided or less than expected.
• Framing change management strategies around distinct phases encouraging alignment, action and adjustment can provide leaders with necessary support for guiding their teams through transitions.
• Not all efforts towards organizational change automatically result in success. When disconnection between leadership and their teams becomes apparent, strategies should adapt for stronger alignment.

The Necessity of Innovation for Purposeful Leaders

An evolving enterprise reliably learns and adjusts over time to reach their strategic goals. Organizational change is simply progress towards these goals.

Without clear change strategies at hand in business and team development, organizations become industry stragglers. As a result of getting stuck in out of date leadership habits, these organizations prevent steady growth and create strategic emergencies for themselves.

When organizations only wait for the danger of “burning platforms” to evolve, leaders lose jobs, stockholders lose money, customers lose faith and colleagues disengage.

However, organizations that consistently evolve not only build reputations as  innovative pacesetters in their respective industries, but avoid these dangers by changing ahead of time.

Effective Change Strategies are Rooted in Human Connection

How do strategic pacesetters evolve ahead of danger?

Human connection is the key.

In Connections, James Burke’s brilliant study of innovations that changed the course of history, he says:

“Innovation occurs for many reasons, including greed, ambition, conviction, happenstance, acts of nature, mistakes and desperation.

But one force above all seems to facilitate the process: the easier it is to communicate, the faster change happens.”

Pacesetters create better connections to people both inside and outside their organization. The resulting ease of communication spurs reliable, innovative evolution.

Without human connection we have no organizations, because the reason an enterprise exists is so that people can achieve something together that they can’t on their own. Maintaining the connections that hold people together in the face of  potentially difficult change is vital.

Align, Act, Adjust: Questions to Ask

Leaders who evolve are better than the stragglers at three phases of human connection:

• They Align more deeply,
• Act more collaboratively,
• and Adjust more often.

Each phase answers different questions. If you convene the right diverse group of people, they will answer them well and produce smart progress.

The questions for each phase are as follows.

ALIGN: Create a mission-critical community

• What are you out to achieve? Why?
• Who must be on board for us to achieve that?
• For every crucial team member, what is their purpose (what they are FOR), their concerns (what are they AGAINST), and circumsances (the situation they are IN)?
• Where do those interests intersect? What mutual purpose inspires collaboration?

ACT: Clarify promises and sponsor accountable action

• To achieve our purpose, what specific goals must we meet? By when?
• Who has the skill and drive needed to keep those promises?
• What information, resources and support do those people need to launch coordinated action?

ADJUST: Set the pace that keeps the team connected, adjusting and improving

• What is the rhythm of connection: Weekly? Bi-weekly? Monthly? Quarterly?
• What is the forum: In-person meetings? Virtual team app? Webinar? A mix of those?
• How will we decide and deploy improvements? What are decision criteria and roles?

Disconnection Signals

If you see these signals in your team when navigating changes, check which of the above questions need to be answered:

• Unkept promises: frequent failure to deliver without asking for help
• Unresolved conflicts: familiar arguments that keep resurfacing
• Unclear accountabilities: people expressing lack of clarity about what and how to contribute
• Joyless activity: a lack of appreciation and enjoyment

How Can Leaders Learn Better Change & Connection Strategies?

Improving human connection produces a stronger organization, simply because we humans enjoy making a meaningful difference.

As a purposeful leader, strive to be a connection pacesetter. Evolution creates more joy and less stress than revolution.

Need more guidance? Get in touch with us for 1:1 change management or team coaching, designed and customized to strengthen emerging leaders with a strong understanding of the importance of human connection in organizational stability and growth efforts.

About the Author

Mickey Connolly

Chairman & Founder

For over 25 years, Mickey Connolly and his colleagues have explored how communication impacts coordinated action and organizational culture, working across global commercial companies, police departments, and military organizations. Their conviction is clear: any group can achieve more with less time, money, and stress by applying “communication for action” techniques. Mickey has worked with over 100,000 managers, educators, and negotiators to resolve conflict, improve relationships, and accelerate achievement, while Conversant associates have supported 400 organizations in 90 countries in reaching mission-critical goals ahead of schedule and under budget. He has co-authored two business books – The Vitality Imperative and The Communication Catalyst – and has worked directly with C-suite teams on strategy execution and cultural transformation for organizations such as Citigroup, Kimberly-Clark, McDonald’s, Zurich Insurance, and the Australian Football League. Additionally, Conversant programs have helped leaders at companies like Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Lockheed Martin, and The Nature Conservancy strengthen connection, creativity, and strategic execution.