Leading change

The majority of people in employment will at some stage experience big change – the kind of organisational change that directly impacts them, their role and purpose. Some experience this quite often during their careers.

What does the future of automotive look like?    

The world is an extremely tough place for all of us at work at the moment and from the inside, the motor industry appears to be having a harder time than most.  Everyone is hit by the difficult economic climate; the economics of automotive are also compounded by technological changes and serious skills shortages, that make these times extremely challenging.

What can we say for certain about how things will be for the industry in five years?  We know that completely new phenomena, such as autonomous vehicles, will start to become more prominent.  It seems very likely that Shared Mobility (car clubs) will change the ownership model for many drivers and that overseas manufacturers will increase their shares of the UK market.  All these things, combined with more changes in technologies and labour market issues, will impact on the organisations and people that make up the sector.  

The reality is, we don’t yet know for sure what the real impact of many of these changes will be.  Or if there’s anything else around the corner we haven’t spotted yet.

We have been through change before, many times, in this sector.  The phasing out of leaded petrol was a long running saga which drew some highly varied responses from different parts of the industry.  Have we, though, ever faced change that was so fundamental and on such a huge scale?  

There are many predictions about the future; what we can’t do is draw up a clear and certain plan of how it’s going to be or exactly what it will look like for any of the individuals working in the sector.  Uncertainty is certain.  That may sound gloomy.  It is a reality, and what change experts have managed to prove is that if we can adapt to that reality and learn to work with it, while our futures become no more certain – we will become fitter to face those futures and to come out well on the other side.

Responding to change

Looking carefully at how people experience change, and how some change experts look at that experience, can be valuable in guiding the choices we make when we decide how to respond to change, and, most importantly, how those of us who are managers support our team members through it.

The change curve is a well recognised model, which reflects human psychology.  It shows that we don’t generally embrace change – at least at first.  We go through a series of emotions as we process what is happening to us before we start to make informed, rational decisions about how we respond to it.  If we understand how we – and others – are going to react when hit with change, we can be better prepared for managing it.

VUCA is another way of looking at change:

• Volatility
• Uncertainty
• Complexity
• Ambiguity

In the early 1990s, VUCA was the US Army War College's response to the collapse of the USSR. As we are now, they were heading into unchartered territory.  

So, they looked closely at what that meant. In a world of change, we cannot create stability where there is volatility, or certainty when everything is uncertain and ambiguous.  We can’t turn a complex world or situation into a simple one. Change isn’t simple.  

What we can do is decide how we best equip ourselves to tackle each of these – they are the impacts of change. If we can break change down a little, we may understand it better – we may be able to manage it if we know what we’re dealing with.

The first thing to think about when we are supporting people through change is how they are likely to react to it. Why do people normally resist change and rarely embrace it?

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s Neuroscience in Action research tells us that, understandably, people resist change because it takes them away from what they know and feel comfortable with.  They fear it will impact them negatively (which it often will) and it can make them feel insecure about their own ability to function in a world they don’t know yet.

Change initiatives and the human factor

Many organisations set themselves up to tackle and respond to change by building change programmes.  They consider what resources and skills they might need, they decide what structure and operating model are most suited to their future and they prepare a plan.  And, quite often, these programmes don’t deliver the required results.

We don’t know exactly how many change initiatives fail – most research points to around 70%. Some people think it’s much more than this. Some change consultants will tell you that for their clients it’s much lower. What we know is that the vast majority do not succeed in taking the organisation where it needs to be. And a common reason for this is related to how people respond to change.

Many organisations fail to deal properly with the human factor and to think through how they are going to guide people through change. This means that many line managers are ill-prepared for the role they have to play, and often they are so preoccupied with how the change affects them that they are unable to move things on for their teams. If we look though at the approximately 30% of change initiatives that succeed, the evidence is that they do certain things right – particularly around how they support their people.

Vision – Understanding – Clarity – Agility – is a commonly used response to VUCA, one that focuses on what people most need when the way head is difficult or unclear. Almost as long as VUCA has been around, this antidote to VUCA also has been.  And even if it isn’t applied at an organisation level, it is something managers may be able to apply in their teams.  While their vision may not extend to a precise definition of what the future looks like; they can provide a strong vision for how they intend to move forward.
 
A very bold chief executive we know once announced to an entire company – “Whatever happens, I want to try and keep this group of people together.”  When that didn’t come entirely true, many people understood the reasons, believed the vision and kept the faith.  So understanding is important too – do we know that people get what is happening and why – or does it just appear to be something management decided to do for no reason? And where there is clarity, what is known and clear, therefore needs to be shared transparently with people.  

Another critical point here is that everyone goes through change at different speeds.  Where I am as a manager will rarely be the same as where my team members are – I have to meet them in the moment they are in and help them get to the next stage.

Above everything, people need to learn how to be agile, and to accept that if we have a plan for today, that plan may have to change tomorrow.

Change Orienteering

Maps make a difference here. A map is much more than a set of helpful images. It provides layers and layers of valuable information on where you are and where you need to get to; it helps you find the best way and tells you lots about what’s along the route you are taking.

Importantly, it shows you the whole landscape, not just a zoomed-in view of where you are on your route. The map is not what gets you there. It's the choices you make, based on the guidance it gives you.

At The Motivation Agency, we developed Change Orienteering in 2009, as a people-centric response to the concerns we heard raised by employees struggling with change. It helps people to become part of the change process, by developing:

CLARITY – making sense of what is happening, to become clear about where they need to go and why getting there matters.
COMMITMENT – providing the opportunity to choose to be on the journey and succeed with it.
SKILLS – helping people identify and build the capability to function in the new environment.
SHARED UNDERSTANDING – creating unity and collaboration across teams.

RESILIENCE – helping people to navigate through uncertainty and build the inner resources they need to stay the course.

It’s an approach that requires managers to be sure that their people can see the reasons behind the change and make choices informed by these reasons. If someone can explain how we got here in their own words, you know they understand. They (and their managers) might not like these reasons. If they understand the reasons, they can take some ownership of what they do next.

Whatever method we use, to help people through change, we need to:

• Ensure they have that full understanding of what is happening and why – it’s not just “this is how it’s going to be.”
• Want (and actively encourage) our people to ask questions and build that deep understanding for themselves.
• Share what information we can share and highlight good news whenever it is available.  We all need good news.
• Help people to accept the tough things that can’t be got rid of.  If there has been a genuine injustice, fighting is a legitimate thing to do. It is natural to rage against unavoidable negative changes; it isn’t always productive.
• Be open about our own vulnerability as leaders – showing our humanity is a sign of strength that will encourage others.

The Motivation Agency are at https://themotivationagency.co.uk/