Whether it’s a “good to great” change, a “turnaround” change, or a “future proofing” change, our experience tell us that the biggest pitfall in totally engaging people to give their all to making it happen is still all too common.
When we ask managers and staff, “What motivates you at work?” (and we ask this ALL the time), the responses are almost equally split into five areas: –
- Impact on the well-being of the customers (providing superior products and services)
- Impact on the working team (creating an honest and fair environment)
- Impact within society (helping to build the community, conserving resources)
- Impact on the company and its shareholders (reputation, integrity, pride and security)
- Impact on “me” personally (my security, mental health, positive development, career path, salary, benefits)
The biggest pitfall we find is that what the leader cares about, and is motivated by, is not necessarily the same for all of his or her people.
So, if the strategic change story only focuses on the leader’s basic motivator, 80% of the workforce may well be left thinking, “What’s this change programme got to do with me? It doesn’t float my boat”!
Leaders invariably fail to unlock the unused potential and release the “discretionary effort”, energy and creativity in 80% of their people, which are so crucial for the business-critical change to land successfully – and move all the performance dials in the right direction to turn the new strategy into a reality.
One recent change programme we ran in an organisation dogged by passive resistance from the team showed a 17.2% efficiency improvement within three months of us helping them re-cast and re-communicate the “change story”.
Another one added £66m to the bottom line in two years!
Maybe we can achieve similar results for you?
Why not call us to discuss your “strategic change story” (after all, over 80% of strategic change strategies fail to deliver on the expected improvements) on 01244 681068 or, if you prefer to email us, that’s fine too.
