PRACTICE 5 LEAD YOUR TEAM THROUGH CHANGE

Most people think change is good—but only when it’s their idea. When it comes from other people, it’s not nearly as enjoyable. As MIT scientist and management expert Peter Senge said, “People don’t resist change; they resist being changed.”^I

Great leaders must lead change, even when it originates from the corporate office, outside consultants, customer demands, economic turmoil, or competitors. And as a first-level leader, most of the change you face will be someone else’s idea.

One of the leaders in our organization has a significant positive influence on his team and his own managers, in part because he not only executes change, he leads out on it. I’ll call him Paul, because that’s his name.

When Paul was a first-level leader, he was struggling to understand a new onboarding process the company had implemented—partly due to his lack of buy-in. He was concerned that the new process was making his team’s life (and his) more difficult than necessary. He thought carefully about his concerns and how his role as a leader was to clear the path for this team and help them reach their goals. At the same time, he also wanted to help the organization achieve its larger goals.

He had the serendipitous opportunity to talk with our CEO at a sales conference where Paul respectfully shared his concerns in a private conversation. He simply said, “I want my team to know I’m completely supportive of the new onboarding process, but to be honest with you, I’m not. I’m sure I can get there with a better understanding of why we are doing it this way. Would you be willing to share with me how we decided on this process?”

After a transparent discussion, Paul not only had a much better understanding of the “why” behind the new process; he also knew how he could more effectively implement the change and even influence other leaders who had similar concerns.

Paul’s action had a positive, lasting impression on our CEO, and it was one of the factors that led to the significant influence he has today, rising from first-level leader to senior executive.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “So is Paul just good at managing up?” you don’t know Paul. He, and other leaders like him, excel at being courageous and vulnerable in seeking to understand the “why” behind the “what.” And one of the most effective ways a first-level leader can do that is to successfully lead out on change.

—TODD

To be clear, “leading out” doesn’t mean coming up with change. In the above story about Paul, he didn’t invent the onboarding strategy; he was asked to implement it. And even though he struggled with it at first, he had the courage, maturity, and humility to ask his leader to help him understand the change so he could authentically get on board.

Plenty of leaders can succeed during good times, but the true mettle of a leader emerges during times of uncertainty. When change comes your way (and it will), it is arguably one of the strongest tests of your leadership capability. Those leaders who show patience, stamina, emotional stability, resilience, and confidence are the most valuable to an organization and their team.

Entrepreneur and author Seth Godin writes, “In today’s world, betting on chaos is the safest bet of all.”^II We’re surrounded by change: layoffs, mergers, leadership shuffles, strategy switcharoos, and “helpful” software updates that often create more headaches than they fix. One of your most important responsibilities is keeping your team productive during upheaval. You can’t just focus on the mechanics of change—processes, tasks, and training. You need to recognize and address the emotional aspect of change too. That’s where change initiatives most often go off the rails.

Nothing will shape your team’s ability to adapt to change more profoundly than the way you approach it. If you resist change or feel overwhelmed, confused, or skeptical, your team will adopt that same frame of mind.

THE FRANKLINCOVEY CHANGE MODEL

The outcomes of an organizationwide change are often unpredictable, as are most people’s responses. The FranklinCovey Change Model is a tool to help all of us move through four common zones of adopting change.

One caveat: change management is the subject of intense study and many an organizational-development dissertation. This chapter is not one of those dissertations. We’ve intentionally created a simple, clear, and actionable model that will help leaders navigate the emotional aspect of change.

This model applies logic and predictability to what can otherwise seem like a chaotic process. It’s a tool for diagnosing your team’s responses to ongoing change—as well as your own—and helping everyone navigate the roughest parts to achieve acceptance and ownership.

Here’s a helpful phrase to remember for the rest of this practice: “short and shallow.” It’s meant to remind you not to wallow or lose traction in any one zone. Instead, it will help you acknowledge each zone, spend the sufficient time necessary dealing with its challenges, and move forward. That will differ for every individual, team, and organization based on cultural tolerance for change, including your own. You’re not trying to shortchange or eliminate any particular zone; instead you’re trying to keep the time you spend in each zone as short and as shallow as reasonable. Sometimes just acknowledging the zone you’re in is enough to move through it.

The model divides the complicated process of change into four zones, based on our natural emotional responses:

• Zone 1: Status Quo. You and your team are doing business as usual before the change occurs, and everyone is relatively comfortable. While change might seem desirable in some circumstances, that’s probably because it’s theoretical. But the theoretical quickly becomes real when change is actually imposed on you and your team.
• Zone 2: Disruption. Emotions run high and results suffer as everyone reacts to the news and its implications for them personally. It’s a time of great stress and uncertainty. As information is shared and the process becomes somewhat clearer, you stop reacting and begin consciously developing a plan of action for your team and yourself.
• Zone 3: Adoption. Resistance and stress turn into acceptance, and for others, resignation (sometimes literally). You and your team identify ways you can adapt to the change and learn new ways of doing things. At the end of this zone, you may begin to see improved results. You may also find yourself squarely facing bad decisions or flawed strategy.
• Zone 4: Better Performance. The change initiative has largely been implemented and, ideally, you and your team are getting better results. But even if the change initiative fails (and many do) beyond your efforts, you and your team have likely increased your resilience and earned a brand of leading out when the next change comes your way.

Change is a sloppy process, but it can be better adopted with awareness of these four zones, especially if you can help make them short and shallow.

You can also use the model to diagnose where each team member is on the emotional curve at a given time. No two people respond to change in the same way or at the same rate. But when you can say, “Shawn is in Zone 3, but Megan is still stuck in Zone 2,” you can address issues on an individual basis.

Great leaders help their team members reach Zone 4 as quickly and smoothly as possible. Preparing for change in Zone 1 and managing emotions in Zones 2 and 3 will help ensure that your team’s change curve is short and shallow.

Finally, address your own journey through the zones as well. Don’t discount your emotions, fears, and confusion. You may need to compartmentalize them briefly to keep your focus on the emotional well-being of your team, but don’t let that temporary holding pattern manifest into permanent avoidance. Be comfortable legitimizing your concerns with your manager in private. If they haven’t created a safe environment for you to do so, find someone else in a senior position whom you can disclose your concerns to. You deserve a safe haven to express your fears and uncertainties. Be mindful that you still need to convey an appropriate sense of confidence and momentum with your team. Balancing these two might feel incongruent, but it’s a tension that every leader faces during change.

When I was working in a large corporation during the global financial crisis, our part of the organization needed to drastically cut costs. There were lots of rumors about layoffs, and people were understandably stressed.

I was leading a high-performing learning and development team, and they started to worry about who was going to be let go first. I brought them together and said, “Listen, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Yes, we might need to let someone go from our team. But just as we feel panicked, everyone in the organization is feeling the same way. That will create worse service for our clients, which will affect our results and, ultimately, our destiny. Let’s talk about the bigger picture and what we’re going to do about this. We need to continue to show the value our team brings to the organization.” I also told them frankly, “I don’t know when I’ll have more information, and I don’t know how much information I’ll be able to share with you, but I’ll do my best to be as transparent as possible.”

I prepared myself to have to let go of some people on my team, and even be laid off myself. My husband and I discussed it and agreed that we needed a Plan B if my entire team (including me) was let go. That’s something I recommend others do ever since that moment: When you are going through challenging times, create a Plan B. Then put it aside so you can focus on being present and executing Plan A.

Finally, we got the orders to cut a large number of managers on staff. We had a deadline of forty-eight hours to make our decision. I was assigned to a small task force making this happen. We knew we had to do this to save the company, but at the same time, we knew whomever we dismissed would be severely affected. We created the list, and then had to call in the managers one by one. It was an awful process I’ll never forget.

When you have to be the bearer of bad news, it’s so easy to make it about yourself and your feelings. In my case, I felt so sorry for the managers that I myself felt like crying. But you need to talk yourself out of that. Remind yourself: “This is not about me. What can I do to make this as humane an experience as possible for this person who knows exactly why they’ve been called to this meeting?”

Remember, this happened within forty-eight hours, while we still needed to run a business. Everyone was having different reactions: anger, shock, denial. We prepared all the managers who would be losing people on their teams with the Change Model and how they could deal with the reactions. We advised them, “Your team may be angry. They may cry or become emotional. And you need to be the bigger person in this. Let them have those reactions, including if they say mean things about you. That’s okay, because it’s not about you; it’s about helping them go through what might be one of the worst experiences in their lives.”

The shock and reactions might linger for longer than you think. In our case, it changed the paradigm that we were a golden, stable organization. Up to that point, people felt so safe. We had to work hard to get back the “winning team” feeling, even though our part of the organization had not performed badly from the start.

—VICTORIA

SKILL 1: PREPARE FOR CHANGE IN ZONE 1

The Zone of Status Quo exists before change is introduced. You and your team are comfortable, and even if everything isn’t ideal, you’ve developed workarounds. Things are predictable. Because of this, the longer the Zone of Status Quo lasts, the more likely your team will respond negatively when change arrives.

INTRODUCING CHANGE AT THE END OF ZONE 1

Being a champion of change begins when you recognize the unusual position you’re in as a first-level leader. When change is handed down, you’re expected to get behind it immediately and then implement it on the front lines. But too often, new managers assume that means they either have to carry the entire burden themselves, or limit the impact the change has on their team. Another mistake a new leader can make is thinking they get points with their team if they create an “us vs. them” mentality, joining in with their team’s criticism or backbiting about the change.

The best approach is to realize everyone needs to be exposed to the change as soon as possible. The more you insulate—and therefore isolate—your team from the new direction, the less secure and relevant they will be when the new strategy becomes permanent.

You’re often the buffer between the leadership that’s been planning the change and the people it ultimately affects. Not only do you have to process your own emotions about the change, but you also have to prepare for the trepidation of your team.

Communicating change simply, clearly, and with respect for the concerns and experience of your direct reports is key to kicking off a change initiative in a positive way. The following are some best practices for doing it right:

Preemptively address messaging with your boss and/or the appropriate stakeholders. Do you know why the change is being implemented, how it’s going to be measured, or how long leaders expect it to take? You can’t keep your people informed if you’re uninformed. Be ready to go to your boss or other stakeholders and inquire in a curious, upbeat, and open-minded way, recognizing that they might not have all the answers and there will be some ambiguity that has to be understood. If everyone had all the answers, change initiatives would never fail. In fact, an astonishing 75 percent of change initiatives fail over the long term.^III

Follow up on news of a company change with the whole team, preferably in person. Bring everyone together right away and explain what’s happening so that everyone hears your interpretation of events at the same time and in the same way. This minimizes the chances of confusion, gossip, or anger about the order in which people were informed. Pay special attention to team members who work remotely—as always, include them via video rather than over the phone so you can better gauge their reactions, and they yours.

Be candid, comprehensive, clear, and fair. Even if the news has positive implications, most people associate change with something bad. Suspense or confusing language will only subconsciously magnify worry and dread. Be direct and clear. Keep your body language relaxed and your tone of voice calm. Avoid jargon and business speak.

If the change is seen as negative, don’t bad-mouth those responsible for the change to make yourself look better in the eyes of your team. Respect people’s intelligence and resilience by leveling with them about hard truths. If people have been let go, say so. If additional positions might be lost, acknowledge it. If this change is going to be difficult, admit it but follow up with details. Your people will cope with what’s happening, but only if they can deal with the whole picture. Most people can handle bad news—they hate ambiguity or evasion.

I worked with a manager once who felt there always had to be an enemy in order for him to be the hero. He always made the organization the bad guy so that his team would see him battling in their favor. While their devotion and appreciation to him was clear, it really slowed things down when there wasn’t an actual enemy to begin with. I think this might be more common than we think with leaders. This may provide a short-term high, but it’s ultimately self-serving and not sustainable.

—TODD

Use “we” and “us,” not “they” and “them.” Resist the urge to blame organizational changes on management. To your team, you are “management.” And even if you had zero input into what’s happening, distancing yourself from it only fosters a sense of futility, as well as a potentially toxic “us against them” attitude. Aim for neutrality and openness in your announcement:

Poor: “You guys aren’t going to believe this, but we’re merging with Competitor X. It’s a decision made by management, and there isn’t anything I can do about it.”

Better: “I learned some important news: We’re merging with Competitor X. I know it’s probably a shock—I’m still processing the news myself. Let me tell you what I know so far, and then I’d like to hear your questions and concerns.”

Clarify how the change will affect your team. It’s human nature for people to want to know how change is going to affect them: “Am I going to keep my job? Should I cancel my kids’ summer camp? Should I call my spouse and tell them they can’t retire next month?” Once while I was announcing an unfortunate set of layoffs, one of my team members interrupted me in the middle of my sentence to call his wife and tell her to cancel their driveway repavement. I don’t share this to mock him; the opposite, in fact. Our careers are central to nearly every aspect of our lives, namely, supporting ourselves and our families. This impact isn’t 100 percent under your control, but you can’t minimize it. Tailor change messages for your team by letting them know how events are likely to impact their work, hours, compensation, relocations, and other factors. Be clear when future change is a certainty and when it’s just a possibility.

Explain why the change is happening. The leaders who make decisions about a change initiative likely have had months to process the upheaval. Your frontline people don’t have that luxury. From their perspective, change often comes out of nowhere. They have no runway to get used to the idea and deal with their feelings.

Just because the benefits of a change are self-evident to you doesn’t mean they’ll be obvious enough to your direct reports to overcome their natural resistance. Provide context—no one appreciates being told to change without knowing why.

If people don’t have the real story about how the change came about, they’ll start to make up their own version in their heads.

—VICTORIA

Acknowledge people’s feelings. Encourage everyone to speak about their feelings honestly. Recognize that their feelings are legitimate, and let them know you are there to help them cope with their reactions as change progresses (“If you feel concerned about your ability to adapt to the new process, let’s walk through it together during our next 1-on-1”). You’ll defuse a lot of potential problems.

Those negative responses could include resentment, cynicism, anger at not being involved or consulted, or recruiting others to join their resistance. In most cases, open communication by the boss and an abundance of patience and empathy can eradicate all of these.

SKILL 2: MANAGE THE DISRUPTIONS IN ZONE 2

Once a change initiative is announced, you and your team move into the Zone of Disruption.

Wait, once it’s announced, not implemented? That’s right. Remember, the Change Model focuses not on activity but on the emotional responses to change, and those begin as soon as your team learns about change on the horizon.

This zone can be the toughest. All change creates disruption on some level—from lost time and increased costs, to intangibles like increased stress or damage to your culture. Even when employees feel positive about a change, factors like uncertainty and a steep learning curve can decrease productivity, increase downtime, and replace motivation with frustration. Any disruption affects the organization’s results; the sloping line on the Change Model graph tells the story. The longer your team stays in the Zone of Disruption, the more your results suffer.

Your team members will stay in this zone until they:

• Understand what’s changing and why.
• Understand what the change means for them personally (e.g., career, finances, schedule).
• Understand what they can do to regain some control over events.
• Decide on the actions they will take.

Team members who fulfill those four requirements have reached what we call the Point of Decision, when results start to rebound. You don’t want anyone getting stuck in this zone, or they will redefine “normal” based on their reduced results. Your job is to minimize disruptions and help everyone find their way to the Point of Decision. These tools will help you achieve that. Remember, short and shallow.

One of your key assignments is to help change feel participatory for your team. How can they collaborate to influence the change? Make yourself and the team part of something exciting and transformative, when possible. We recognize that not all change lends itself to enthusiastic embrace, but the more you can involve your people in the process, the better.

As effective as your first communication might have been, your team will need time to process and understand the change. They will talk about it, worry about possible repercussions, and have new questions. This is natural. Resist trying to control negative reactions that make you uncomfortable. Give your team some elasticity to deal with their emotional responses. Remember, your role is to clarify, explain, resist spinning, and keep them updated.

If intense emotions are present, your people may forget much of the detail you shared. They may also find their ability to adapt compromised by anxiety or the desire to resist change. One solution is to communicate comprehensively and constantly. Be transparent. Tell people what’s happening and why, as it happens. Listen to their questions and find answers as quickly as possible. Information and action are the antidotes to fear.

Check in with each team member frequently. By touching base with each person individually, you can ask open-ended questions that will help you better understand their state of mind and, if appropriate, suggest ways you can help. If you already do weekly 1-on-1s (see Practice 2), this process should be much easier.

Examples of questions you might ask:

• “How are you feeling about yesterday’s news?”
• “What concerns do you have at this point that haven’t been addressed?”
• “Have you been through something like this before in your career? What were some of the things you learned during that process?”
• “What can I do to make things easier?”

Minimize anxiety and quell rumors with information: “I can understand why you’re concerned—doubling the team’s size over the next year will present plenty of challenges. But the managers I’ve spoken with have assured me that if we need more space, we’ll remain in the city, at least for the foreseeable future.”

Express solidarity: “I agree it will be a tough transition—we’ll all need to help each other through it.”

Don’t panic if someone asks a question or makes a comment that catches you off guard: “Thanks for bringing that up. I’ll need some time to look into it and will share what I learn with the whole team tomorrow.” And then do it.

Walk your talk. Teams always watch their managers closely, but your behavior will be scrutinized even more during times of change, simply because people may be trying to figure out what the change really means and how to respond. They will take your actions, reactions, emotions, and attitudes as cues for what the team’s culture is now and how they should respond to what’s happening.

Be mindful of what you say, how you say it, and how you react to change-related news that may be less than ideal. The calmer and more confident you are, the more your direct reports will focus on how they can adapt to the change too.

Address cynicism. No leadership team implements change because they’re bored. Change is necessary because of the adage “change or die.” Innovation and growth require new ideas, processes, and paradigms. Regardless of the industry, the global pressures of competition and shareholder growth mandate change, and everyone hopes it’s the right decision.

One of the problems with change is that most people initially believe a change will make things worse rather than better. Some view new initiatives as the “change du jour,” riding out the initiative because they’re confident it will fail and the status quo will resume. The better bet is to get on board, lead out, and engage your team early so that all of you are set up for success on the other side.

Here’s a helpful paradigm. In their book How Will You Measure Your Life?, Clayton Christensen, James Allworth, and Karen Dillon discuss two different types of strategy: deliberate and emergent. Deliberate strategies begin and end intact. But according to the authors, close to 93 percent of successful strategic initiatives change along the way. In some cases, the end strategy looks nothing like the initial plan. These are emergent strategies.^IV

As a first-level leader, you will find it helpful to understand ahead of time that a change will usually look different eighteen months later. Knowing this helps us be more forgiving, more tolerant, and more nimble throughout the process. You can become more adaptive and move through the zones of change faster if you don’t get wrapped up in the fact that the strategy may emerge over time.

Rather than ignore skepticism, lean into it. It’s okay to feel skeptical about change, and it’s healthy to let your team air their concerns. But don’t let the conversation turn into a festival of cynicism or finger-pointing. Draw on the empathy you learned in Practice 2. Simply feeling heard and having concerns recognized is an important part of coping. Giving your people that opportunity can make a big difference.

No announced change can have been thought through with every consequence—positive or negative—ticked and tied. Leaders are people too. Most change initiatives evolve. Recognize there are likely hundreds of data points and variables under scrutiny, and have some faith in your leadership. Assume good intent. There might be more to the picture than you currently understand, and seek out answers to your larger questions to help you and others get on board. The more you adopt this mindset, the less anxiety you’ll have.

Confront chronic resistance and regression. Some people will continue to resist change, even after their colleagues are on board. Others might look like they’re adapting to change but then regress to old behavior. Deal with such resistance head on, but with finesse and restraint, because such opposition isn’t always a matter of stubbornness. If you trample someone’s concerns, you may never get to the true cause of their noncompliance. As suggested before, patience, empathy, and perhaps a healthy dose of listening to their concerns will pay dividends. If it doesn’t, you may need to exercise some straight talk and clarify that the train has left the station—you’d like them to be on it, but if they can’t find their seat, they may need to pick a different destination.

Is the resistance a phase, a statement, or a deep, intractable mindset? Is the person a concerned employee with valid challenges, or an unreasonable agitator? Is the person engaged and high-performing? (It’s surprisingly common for people who have thrived in an old environment to resist change because they have the most to lose from it.) Is the resistance overt or covert? Hidden resistance might indicate that you haven’t created a team culture that encourages open dialogue and transparency. Your job is to model that it’s safe to tell the truth throughout your career so that culture is in place when needed.

The aim of all these tips is to reach the Point of Decision, where the majority of your team buys in to the change and is ready to move into Zone 3.

During the crisis with the layoffs I shared earlier in this chapter, we had to help the team continue working while dealing with the emotional impact of layoffs. The preparation I mentioned in Zone 1 helped tremendously. It was important to share as much information as I could.

I had to help the team see the bigger picture—in this case, a possible disruption of the entire organization—and how they could play an active role. The team and I discussed how important it was to go out to other departments and support people there, rather than hide in our offices.

—VICTORIA

SKILL 3: ADAPT QUICKLY TO CHANGE IN ZONE 3

Change is hard, and it doesn’t always end in a beautiful upward arc of success for everyone. Change can mean having to let people go, or result in people who don’t want to get on board ultimately choosing to leave. Once change takes hold and begins to drive behavior, that’s when it’s most likely to fail.

In this zone, you and your team have made it past the Point of Decision and begun to adapt to the change’s new rules. This is where stuff gets real. When you begin this zone, you’re in a results abyss. Your people have spent all their time adapting to new rules, technologies, procedures, culture—essentially reinventing how they work. And now your job is to help them pivot from learning back to execution in this new reality.

Turning the “results” curve upward means more work, so it’s important to evaluate everything you and your team members are doing and decide what makes sense to start, continue, or stop. The quicker you can adapt to the change, the faster everyone will feel good about the sacrifices you’ve made and see the benefits. Short and shallow!

In a perfect world, the curve in the Zone of Adoption looks like this:

However, in the real world, the curve looks more like this:

At this stage, your team is starting to use a new software dashboard to manage sales, learning to work with new vendors, managing an increased workload that their departed colleagues formerly owned, finding the bathrooms in new offices, or dealing with whatever change was handed down to you from on high as you try to get back to business. This does not happen smoothly, but in fits and starts. Newly installed back-end systems and hardware go down, frustrating everyone. Last-minute changes are made but unintentionally not communicated to the people on the front line—you and your team. Some of your team members’ attitudes and compliance might regress as reality sinks in: what was ineffective but instinctive is now more effective but demands a lot more effort.

That’s normal, but it doesn’t mean it’s easy. As this part of the process begins, you should shape people’s expectations of what’s to come. For example, if you’re dealing with a technology change, you might say, “For the next few weeks or months, some of us may not be able to work on autopilot like we earned the right to do by mastering our old processes. We all might feel slower and clumsier as we continue to navigate new procedures and inadvertently revert to some of our old habits. Technology, process, and communication will break down from time to time. But it’s temporary.”

The tools here will help you keep that promise:

Reset and reprioritize expectations at both the team and individual levels. See Practice 3: Set Up Your Team to Get Results.

Focus on what matters (and say no to the rest). To make the uphill climb through the Zone of Adoption, focus on activities that support that effort and say no to those that don’t. Saying no isn’t easy, but if you take on too much at this vital stage, you may never find the momentum to pull through this zone. Shield your team from anything unrelated to mastering the new behaviors they’ll need to be successful.

Use a scoreboard to track progress. Refer to Practice 3: Set Up Your Team to Get Results for more information on using scoreboards. Consider creating one specifically for the change process.

Create and celebrate early wins. As you move through the Zone of Adoption, your team members will need to see regular signs of progress if the change is going to remain urgent, or remain at all.

Consider what short-term wins you could steer your team toward to help them feel a sense of progress and momentum. A short-term win is a meaningful improvement that’s obvious to everyone and unambiguously related to the change you’ve all been working on. Tangible costs savings due to the new process? That’s a win. A happy customer? Win, win. Finally solving a technical problem with the calendaring software that’s been driving your team crazy for two years? Win, win, win.

Remember that bringing your team through change is largely about managing emotions. Keeping team morale high will help support the effort it takes to get out of this zone.

Learn from mistakes. Change requires trying new things, and when people attempt something out of their comfort zone, they’re bound to make mistakes. It’s entirely possible to maintain a high bar for performance while remaining encouraging and upbeat. A smile, a compassionate tone of voice, and an acknowledgment of the person’s effort can go a long way: “Thanks for trying the new consultative approach we talked about in that call. I really appreciate your willingness to give it a shot. May I give you some advice for next time? Let me share something I learned in my own attempt.”

When we were trying to make the switch from one email system to another, one of our people called me on a Sunday and said, “I can’t see any of my appointments on my phone.” I said, “We sent out an email that showed you how to do that,” but as the words were leaving my mouth, I knew we’d messed up. She said, “Todd, I got four hundred emails last week, and while I’m sure it’s in there somewhere, I’ve got a client call in two hours and I can’t get on it.”

I learned that real life takes precedence over the best-laid plans. By asking better questions and involving people sooner, I could have anticipated potential issues and been out in front of them.

—TODD

Mistakes are part of any change initiative. Once you truly believe this, your team will come to believe it. Your thoughts, words, and actions must be congruent to create an environment where mistakes become safe learning opportunities. You may need to further coach team members on skills related to the change, which entails more than signing someone up for a training course. Use your 1-on-1s to set learning goals together and explore ways to get there. You can pair team members with mentors to give them additional perspective and a channel for feedback.

Have regular, open conversations about the change and its effects with your team as a group and/or in 1-on-1s. This is so important, we’re going to reinforce it again. If you lock yourself in your office until the climate improves, your team won’t forget it—or forgive you. Instead, rise to the challenge, which isn’t a one-time event. Listen to and support your team members, and in the process, build trust and validate any ongoing confusion.

Give your team the outlet they need to voice their concerns: “It’s been a crazy week here. I wanted to touch base and hear from you about how you’re feeling. What concerns and questions do you have?”

Because everyone processes change differently and at their own pace, it’s also a good idea to follow up with people in their 1-on-1s. That way you can ask open-ended questions to better understand each person’s state of mind, reframe the change in ways that tap into their motivations and goals and, if appropriate, suggest ways you can help. Remember, you can’t communicate enough during a change. Frequent and transparent communication is key.

Don’t “spin” or downplay the difficulty of the situation. If you’ve ever been told immediately after getting bad news that it’s “actually a great opportunity,” you know how insulting and demoralizing it is to be fed a line. Instead of raising the team’s spirits, such talk will make them angry and rebellious. Respect your team enough to be truthful and realistic about where everyone is in the process in ways that don’t inhibit momentum. Your job isn’t just to be a repository of complaints and concerns; you also have to lead your team and maintain momentum to earn the respect that comes from triumph.

Recruit “change evangelists” from your team to keep people moving. Within your team, you will probably have people who adapt to change more easily and regard it with more enthusiasm. Make allies of them. Recruit them to help the more change-resistant team members or people who are struggling with a new process or technology. Don’t play favorites (as that can have the opposite effect in morale than you want), but encourage your evangelists to lend a hand, lend an ear, and bring positive energy around the change to the office every day.

During an enormous technological change at our organization, one of the initiative’s leading champions became one of its greatest opponents once she saw what it meant for her department. But by helping her get clarity on the tangible benefits of the switch, the leadership team turned her back into a key cheerleader for the effort. Her enthusiasm became an essential support for morale.

Listen compassionately when people vent, but don’t join in. There’s a big difference between showing that you care and airing your own grievances when employees vent. Listen, ask questions, and acknowledge team members’ feelings, but stop there. As tempting as it may be to join in complaint sessions, doing so could damage your credibility and make your team feel even worse. Make it about them, not you.

Ask your leader for feedback and help. They might have a different perspective on why the change isn’t working and may be able to help you turn things around. In some organizational cultures, asking for help is thought to mean “I’m incapable.” But asking for help is a sign of confidence, teachability, and the drive to get it right.

SKILL 4: SEEK FEEDBACK AND CELEBRATE SUCCESS IN ZONE 4

When you finally reach the Zone of Better Performance, you begin to see real benefits from the change that you’ve struggled through. You take control of the change and use it to your advantage. Here, the results you get begin to look better than when you first started out.

Even your most reluctant direct reports finally get on board. People who were relentlessly negative become more positive—sometimes because they have no choice. The benefits that were self-evident to management become self-evident to everybody. Now wins become more frequent and tangible results more apparent. This is definitely the time to celebrate and reward everyone involved in making this transformation a success. But it’s also the time to avoid complacency. The lessons from achieving your goals—and even from failing—can pave the way for future success and better performance.

What did you learn about your employees’ capacity and personalities that you could leverage outside the context of the Change Model? Are there individuals with leadership or communication skills you (and possibly they) were unaware of? Has openness about anxiety or emotions fostered a new sense of camaraderie and closeness among your team that you can take into future endeavors? Did you improvise processes or solutions that were met with unexpected success?

Chart key learnings about what worked and what didn’t during the change initiative; do it with your team if you can. Then speculate: How could any or all of it be applied to increasing performance even more?

Seek feedback on how to better lead change. Review Practice 4: Create a Culture of Feedback for ideas on how to do this.

Make new goals, if needed. Revisit Practice 3: Set Up Your Team to Get Results if you need to formulate new goals for the team or individuals as a result of the change.

Build team capability for future changes. More change is coming, sooner or later. What can you and your team take away from this change initiative that will make future change easier and future journeys through the zones faster?

• What mistakes could have been prevented?
• What best practices should be preserved for future changes?
• What type of resistance did you encounter and why?
• How could you more effectively manage your team’s emotions in the future?
• If you were to create a change “operations manual” for your team, what would be included?
• Assess your degree of “short and shallow”—is there anything you can learn from the duration spent in each zone?

Get into the habit of asking, “What could we be doing better?” and then following through on the best ideas. Actively build a healthy team culture in which feedback is constant and framed constructively, ensuring your people are ready to be communicative and transparent when changes hit. Start using 1-on-1s with your direct reports as a tool to explore learning and development goals so that your team’s skillset keeps pace with your industry.

During times of change, your role is to lead your people through so they can adapt quickly and come out the other end with better performance. By demonstrating that you can thrive during uncertainty, you’ll likely accelerate your own leadership trajectory as well.