Leading in Times of Change & Transition

The Center for Creative Leadership's Michael Wakefield recently gave some "communications fundamentals" when leading in times of change and transition:

• Communicate relentlessly.  Now is not the time to keep quiet.
• Listen.  Pay attention to what people are saying, thinking & feeling.
• Explain the change.
• Make an appeal.  Draw on a sense of loyalty, courage, morality or other principles that tie the organization's change strategy to what is important to people.
• Articulate expectations.  Clearly explaining why, how and when things will need to happen will set expectations and create a healthy level of stress and pressure. 
• Be visible. Find ways to interact!
• Confront problems and conflict.  Don't postpone dealing with challenging issues or conflict.  Avoidence will only harm you, your co-workers and your organization.
• Be honest and open.  An effective leader will ask the hard questions and foster an environment of honesty and candid discussion.
• Show respect.  Treat people with genuine concern and sincere consideration.
• Make room for doubts. Don't dismiss, write-off or label employees too easily or too quickly.
• Don't dismiss the old.  Help people through transition by acknowledging their history and attachments.
• Be sincere and authentic.  Don't try to bury or deny your own reactions to ongoing events.
• Trust people to handle the truth.  Tell them what you know and own up to what you don't know.
• Demonstrate that you can handle the truth.  Stay connected to a broad circle of people and make it clear that you want them to share their concerns and ideas.

CCL's website

Comments

[Terri]

Thanks for the info about meebo.com It's such a help! Have a great day Scott

[Paul W. Swansen]

Ok, so their point is? I'm looking at most of the suggestions and it occurs to me that most of them are common sense type of things. It doesn't appear that there is any ground breaking things here. Maybe it's the implementation that needs work.