When you lead change, it takes more than a strong, well-implemented plan to succeed. It’s also essential to check that the actions and behaviors you think are most important have the impact you expect.
All on board, and we’re still fighting!
Steve, CEO of an energy company, threw every ounce of energy into launching their new strategic product.
He relied on this game-changing proposition to help their company stick more closely with customers in an increasingly competitive industry. He also hoped it would attract new customers away from their competitors.
Steve did so many things right to create clarity. He ensured that employees at every level understood why the new product was so mission critical to their long-term future.
His 5×5 communication strategy was more like 30×30. Everyone in every corner of the company knew their goals and their specific task behaviors to achieve them.
Steve had dedicated leaders he trusted to lead the change almost full-time. He devoted significant financial resources to finish it. People cared. They worked hard to bring mark productninth. They knew what they were supposed to do, and they did it.
But the show struggled to gain traction.
As Steve put it:
I was so frustrated with the lack of sales, I had reinforced why it was so important so many times, I was tired of hearing myself talk about it.
But service reps struggled to convert inquiries into sales. Then one day, I went into the contact center and took a few customer calls myself. The questions were difficult.
I realized that it was difficult to explain our new program and our training did not prepare our representatives to receive these calls.
It occurred to me that no amount of explaining why this program is important will help until or if the representatives have the information to answer our customers’ questions. No matter the marketing campaign or incentives our reps were overwhelmed by the calls they received.
As I got closer to what was going on, I realized that not only did we have a gap in our training, but there were also some policies and procedures that we didn’t quite understand.
When you’re looking to make significant change, it takes more than clearly communicating what’s important and tight action plans to make it happen. It is essential to show up with curiosity to ensure that behaviors have the desired effect.
In this case, the reps were able to explain the value proposition with excitement and learned to eloquently bridge the sale on common inbound calls. But they couldn’t answer the deeper logistical questions that matter most to potential buyers.
When Leading Through Change: Schedule the “Show”
In our book Courageous Cultures, we call this “timing the show.” Performance timing means making a deliberate plan to observe the behaviors that you assume should happen and that those behaviors influence the effect you anticipate.
You can schedule a site visit, a drop-in meeting, or, like Steve, you can dive in and participate alongside your team.
The leaders who do this best master the art of the old Russian adage popularized by Ronald Reagan and now echoed in boardrooms around the world: “Trust, but be true.”
To truly understand the support his team needed, Steve needed to experience the initiative from the front and hear from customers.
And here’s what else he learned.
His front-line employees were much more interested in hearing his selling ideas when they knew he knew how hard it was—and that he was vulnerable enough to admit it. In companies where the display phase breaks down, we often hear complaints that “leaders just don’t get it.”
They stay away from the action. They rely on frontline managers to investigate and raise issues, many of whom lack the confidence or ability to do so well (see also Share your ideas: practical ways to make your voice heard).
Lead change: 5 ways to check what you expect
When leading change it’s tempting to focus more on clarity than curiosity—telling people what needs to happen and why. It is also important to show up with curiosity to understand what is happening and why.
1. Champion and test the behavior yourself (and if you’re a manager of managers, make sure they can do it too).
When I (Karin) led the store channel at Verizon, I found that one of the best ways to learn how to position our products to customers was to spend time on the floor talking to customers.
And there was a direct correlation between how well my managers could talk about our products and the sales results of their teams.
My team and I often learned there were gaps in training or nuances we could add that made our products easier to understand and more appealing when we rolled up our sleeves and practiced ourselves.
2. Invite your team to show you their approach
We know, most people cringe when they hear the words “role-playing”.
But do you know what works well to help tune behavior? role play.
When you’re leading change, one of the best ways to build momentum is to get your team to practice and show you and each other the behaviors you’re looking to instill.
3. Conduct regular skip level meetings and leadership visits.
Leadership visits and skip-level meetings are a great way to check understanding to ensure people understand what’s important and that they know what to do at a behavioral level.
And as Steve learned, it pays to appear curious about impact. Are the behaviors you encouraged and trained having the results you wanted?
Make it easy for your team to give you bad news and tell you what isn’t working.
4. Teach your team to ask each other brave questions
Of course, in a brave culture, it’s not just the leader who “tests” what they expect, but everyone who comes to work and asks, “Is it working?” “Is there a way we can do it better?”
One simple technique we teach in our team innovation programs is the art of asking brave questions.
Courageous questions are specific and humble.
- What is one policy that really annoys our customers?
- If you could make one change to improve the customer experience, what would it be?
- When customers call, what is their number one complaint?
- What is the most important action we take to make our customers happy? How would you recommend doing this more consistently?
5. Acknowledge difficulty
One of the biggest frustrations we hear from employees when it comes to large-scale change is that their boss doesn’t “get how hard it is.” Change does not happen in a vacuum.
It may be that the new behavior you expect the team to adopt is actually not that difficult. But what’s difficult is making the change over the twenty-seven other tasks they’re trying to manage, along with customer and team member escalations going out with Covid.
Your team wants to know you understand everything they’re juggling. Give them a chance to show you that too. And of course, thank them for their efforts.
When leading change efforts, curiosity is key. The show is confident and clear about what’s most important, and curious about how it’s really going. Stay involved and lead the way.
your turn
What are your best practices for leading through change and checking what you expect?
