Here are five practical ways to thrive through organisational change. 

1. Creating the ‘why’ and explaining it through positive, optimistic communication 

Explaining the ‘why’ behind the change in positive, optimistic language is essential so that you bring everyone along with you right from the start. Here at MGI we call this creating the believable case. It is the driving force behind any organisational change programme we develop for our clients and provides the essential roadmap for the entire process. It encompasses the long-term benefits and clearly shows how the change aligns with the company’s mission and values. 

This then extends across all the language and communications used during the change, all of which should be optimistic with the positives always communicated first. A culture of clear, open communication is critical because it fosters trust and demonstrates that leadership is confident in the process, which inspires the same confidence in employees.  

2. Prepare people for the change by equipping them with the skills they need 

Change often requires employees to acquire new skills, adapt to new technologies, or adjust to different workflows. Ensuring that people are equipped with an optimal mindset will allow them to assess the impact of any situation and understand what control or influence they have. It also encourages involvement in the change, where their views and feedback are welcomed and listened to, allowing them to know that they do have influence and make a difference to the overall success of the process.  

Robust training and development opportunities equip people with the tools and resources they need to thrive in the new environment. This ensures a smoother transition while fostering a culture of growth and resilience. When people feel supported in their development and confident, they are more likely to embrace the change and perform at their best. 

It’s important to promote a mindset of continuous improvement by offering ongoing learning opportunities through online courses, workshops or access to learning platforms. At MGI, embedding the learning from our training courses is a vital step to successful outcomes, because in our experience, people who feel they are always growing will be more adaptable to future changes. 

3. Align to HR and performance management 

With changing business landscapes, flexibility and adaptability are critical traits for any organisation. Equipping people with the skills to be flexible and adaptable cultivates a culture that values and encourages employees to be open to new ideas and approaches. It also gives them the confidence to know they can assess the impact objectively, come up with alternatives and solutions if they question certain aspects of the change, and know they will be rewarded and recognised for their contributions. 

It’s important to ensure that, through your HR and performance management, you are recruiting for, fostering and rewarding this flexibility and adaptability. Ensuring these traits are represented in behaviour frameworks, KPIs and objectives reinforces and embeds this expectation into the organisation.  

4. Lead by example 

During organisational change, leadership plays a crucial role in setting the tone for the entire company, building and sustaining momentum for the change. People look to their leaders for direction and reassurance. Leaders who model adaptability, optimism and resilience help create a positive environment that fosters employee confidence in the change process. 

When leaders embrace change with a positive attitude and a clear sense of direction, it sets the standard for the rest of the organisation, so it is essential to engage managers and influencers right from the start of the process. Employees are more likely to trust the process and commit to the change if they see that leadership is fully invested and confident. 

Leaders should actively participate in training and development programmes, attend launch meetings and be visible throughout the change process. This shows that they are invested and are experiencing the change alongside their teams. 

Leaders who remain solution-focused and resilient during challenging times and the inevitable setbacks of change, inspire their people to do the same. Strong leadership means providing a clear vision for the future and a roadmap for how to get there. Employees need to see clear direction and that there is a plan in place, seeing it evolve over time. 

5. Celebrate Wins and Milestones 

As you link back to the believable case at regular points throughout the process, recognising and celebrating both big and small wins helps maintain morale and motivates everyone to keep pushing forward. Celebrating progress along the way  

creates a sense of accomplishment and reinforces the positive aspects of the change. It also helps to break down what might be a lengthy process into manageable chunks, ensuring the organisational stamina required is in place.  

Setting clear milestones throughout the change process and celebrating when they are reached is motivational. Whether it’s completing a training program or successfully implementing a new system, acknowledging progress keeps momentum strong. Internal announcements, social media posts, awards, or celebrations can be used to recognise progress and individuals embracing and leading the change. 

From building a believable case and a clear roadmap to follow, fostering open communication, investing in learning and development, building a culture of adaptability to leading by example and celebrating milestones, companies can certainly thrive through change. These practical strategies will help businesses navigate transitions smoothly while also positioning them for long-term success in an ever-evolving market. 

Get in touch here to find out how MGI’s Mindset, Language & Actions Toolkit can equip your financial customer service teams with the supercharged communication and people skills required to deliver exceptional customer experiences. 

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Preparation is key for any transformational change programme whether the change is to culture, process, systems, policy or strategy. Change programmes are dependent upon what people think and feel about the change, and what they say and do throughout the process.  

Equipping people with the right mindset and behaviours to thrive through change is a powerful way to facilitate a successful outcome, making changes easier to implement and more successful overall. Any investment in your people to deliver change more effectively will be a significant benefit to your organisation’s reputation, productivity and resilience. 

Considering what people are thinking and feeling about any change and how they are communicating, what they say and do, underpins successful preparation for change.  

Ensuring the right mindset – what we think and feel about a change

In our experience, preparing your people to be open to change and creative in their approach to new ways of working so that they can rise to new challenges and thrive requires a specific mindset. This mindset is characterised by four things.  

Firstly, people will have a strong belief in taking ownership and responsibility, they will be willing to engage with the changes and play their part rather than put up barriers and obstacles to progression.

Secondly is the belief that there is a good way forward in any situation in business.  A successful change culture is built on solution-focused thinking and the ability to assess situations and solve problems.

Thirdly, to have a culture that thrives through change requires people to have a mindset where they believe each person has something to contribute. They are willing to listen to other points of view and seek and act on feedback.

Finally, engaging everyone in the change requires them to believe they do make a difference and are an important part of the process of creating a better future.  

It is possible to equip people with key skills to develop this mindset. This includes: 

• the ability to self-assess and self-manage into the most productive emotional state,  

• being able to objectively assess each situation and challenge that arises during the change process with solution-focus,  

• and having a set of powerful evaluation techniques to find ways forward to progress the change process without becoming stuck and blinkered to the opportunities presented.   

Leaders, managers and HR professionals play critical roles in diligently ensuring their people are fully engaged in any change programme and are given the foundational skills they need to successfully navigate ever changing business priorities.  

Demonstrating this positive, solution-focused mindset to others by what we say and do 

How people in organisations communicate with each other during times of significant change is a defining aspect in determining the programme’s success. The mindset we describe above is shown to others through what is said and done. In a time of change it is so important that communication focuses on what can be done rather than what is not possible, the benefits of a change before any negatives or difficulties, the options and alternatives to keep the change programme moving forward, and how true barriers or obstacles can be navigated around, through or over.  

Imagine an environment where, whatever the challenge, the first response is to be solution-focused, using positive, collaborative, empathetic language to review the change situation and devise an effective way forward. This does not mean always agreeing with every aspect of change; rather, the communication drumbeat is one of collaboration, positive first, empathy, appreciation and constructive debate. It is incumbent on everyone involved in the change process to be mindful of what they say and do, with a focus on demonstrating an optimal mindset of ownership and responsibility, optimism and solution-focus, respect for others’ perspectives and a commitment to making a difference. 

At MGI we equip people with the tools they need to embrace this optimal mindset and communicate in a positive, solution-oriented manner, helping to clear the path to deliver successful change programmes.  

Get in touch to find out how we can rapidly equip your teams with everything they need to thrive through change or take a look at our change programme training solutions here. 

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Underpinning any transformational change programme will be the organisation’s values and purpose which can be powerful catalysts for employee engagement and buy-in to that change. When our values are well defined, relatable and believable, they can be the guiding light that keeps everyone on track and in a strong position to truly live the changes and face the future together with enthusiasm and drive. They can be the galvanising force that builds momentum and achieves organisational goals where people feel empowered to be an integral part of the process, because they see a clear way forward.

Increased engagement

People who know, understand and incorporate company values everyday are significantly more engaged and aligned to the organisation, and empowered to achieve its goals and objectives. When we talk with team members in organisations about their values, overwhelmingly they seem to agree that they are a good description of how the organisation should be perceived both internally and externally yet are unclear how to relate them to everyday working practice.

Powerful how-to skills

Our experience shows that when we empower people with the right how-to skills clearly aligned to the values, they will explicitly know what is expected of them and be able to confidently know that these specific tools and resources help them to excel against the company values and behaviours.

What it takes to live the values

The first step is to ensure high awareness of your values across every level of the organisation. Our research generally shows that people are aware that the company has values, some can name them, however few are truly able to say how they can demonstrate them daily. To make the values a powerful contributor to organisational success means that ultimately everyone in the organisation must be clear on both exactly what the values are and how specifically they can demonstrate them.

By giving people a set of how-to skills that align to the values and help them to clearly express them in their behaviours every day can accelerate the impact of having the values in the first place.

1.     An optimal mindset

In our experience it takes two things to live company values, and the first is an optimal mindset which can be seen as a foundation stone as it is at the heart of everything we think, feel, say and do and impacts every aspect of our lives. 

Having a positive, optimal mindset that’s solution-focused will underpin any professional, forward thinking set of values. It equips us to step up and take ownership and responsibility for our role and be optimistic so that we can buy into the future of the business with a positive attitude, confident in the team’s ability to work together with strength and resilience, even in the face of adversity or change. It’s a framework that can shape our response to every situation that comes our way and drives our interaction and relationships with others. It helps us to really listen, show respect and accept feedback as a valuable learning opportunity, and gives us a firm belief that our contribution really does make a difference.

Helping people to develop and maintain this optimal mindset builds a firm foundation to underpin any successfully functioning organisation, and can be a clear reflection of its purpose, vision and mission.

2.     Positive communication and effective collaboration

Once we have mastered the different elements of an optimal mindset, it’s vital to have the clear how-to skills to hand so that we can demonstrate it to others through every aspect of our communication. Positive, clear and engaging communication skills that build two-way trust are powerful and an essential foundation to achieve effective collaboration and build strong and meaningful relationships.  Whatever the thrust of the conversation, it’s important to use positive, influential language in line with our optimal mindset, always ensuring that the first thing we say is constructive, empathetic, positive and solution focused as this demonstrates inclusion and respect and builds trust. Whatever the situation, there are tools and techniques that make it easy for us to fully consider every option and keep us moving forward in a professional and positive manner. 

In our experience the ability to communicate positively with solution-orientation, focusing on what is possible rather than what is not, will fast track people’s ability to demonstrate the organisation’s values.

At the heart of every organisation’s values lies the ability to collaborate. Collaborate with colleagues and with external parties. Collaboration is central to building trust, demonstrating commitment, being accountable and working together positively with others. In our experience these attributes are always found in organisational values. Collaboration is when a tightly knit workforce comes together at the top of their game – showing active involvement, questioning and challenging skills and being supportive of one another. Being open and honest gives everyone the opportunity to be engaging, co-creative and inclusive so that working relationships can flourish on a foundation of mutual respect and a sense of belonging.

When the right steps are taken to ensure your people understand the company vision and values and are equipped with the right how-to skills, it becomes second nature to live them every day and create a strong company culture that achieves its purpose, so that you can expect to attract and keep amazing people who are engaged and motivated and enjoy what they do.

Helping people to truly align themselves with your values across every aspect of their working lives requires a robust and engaging training process that results in an overarching skillset of how-to tools that will empower them. MGI’s Mindset, Language & Actions Toolkit will equip your people with everything they need to understand and maximise upon the crucial link between mindset and values – empowering them to promote and demonstrate these values in everything they think, feel, say and do so that they can excel in their roles.

To find out how our engaging and enjoyable Learning Journeys can be tailored to provide your people with a clear pathway to the guiding principles of your company’s values and purpose, please get in touch or book a consultation.

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Your people are vital to a successful change programme

According to McKinsey, many of the reasons for the failure of change programmes relate to the people side of the organisation, with CEO’s often overlooking the importance of building conviction, communicating the believable case for change to get buy in and equipping employees with the skills they need to deliver the change.  Here at MGI Learning, it’s our experience that any business transformation program’s success is clearly dependent on the participation and buy-in of those who will be affected by it – those who will be “living” it in the future. Process, technology, policy and structural change will be easier to achieve if these people-focused initiatives are given priority, because your team will be ready, willing, and able to get on board with enthusiasm and commitment.

Five key factors that influence employee mindset and behaviour

After 20 years of delivering transformational change training to support businesses through complex transformation programmes, we find that leaders stand the best chance of long-term success when they focus on five key factors to help positively influence mindset and behaviour during times of change. These are: Awareness, Motivation, Road-mapping, Ability and Reward.

1.     Awareness: building understanding of the rationale for change

Individuals accept, adapt to, and engage with change when they believe there is a valid reason for it. A critical first step is to develop a believable case that others can buy into and regard as credible. You’ll be on the right track if you can show a direct link between the change and the benefits that each individual and team will receive if they adopt the new ways of working.

Many transformational change requirements are readily welcomed across the business, however they are often accepted for quite different reasons. Leaders frequently overestimate the extent to which others share their own attitudes, beliefs, and opinions.

Therefore, the case for change may need to be tailored to different departments, teams, or organisational levels, created with the specific employee audience in mind. It’s important to really get under the skin of the teams around the business and provide clear answers to any questions that may be a barrier to engaging with change such as “What does it mean to me and my role?”, What does it mean for the business?”, “Is it worth going through it?” and “What will the benefits be?”

Leaders who craft a rationale focused on these outcomes will enable people in their own area or team, to feel they can believe in the case for change, and that it has value for them personally as well as the business. 

2.     Motivation: developing conviction to get involved

Once you have built an understanding about the change and why it’s happening, the next step is building conviction to get involved with the journey and to jump in with enthusiasm. The aim here is to help your people to move from “I understand what’s being asked of me” to “I understand what’s being asked of me – it makes sense and I want to be a part of it.” Building trust at this stage is vital and communicating the change honestly and transparently to your people will help to create the culture you need to take change successfully forward into the business.  A sense of involvement and a connection with the rationale for change will help your people say “Yes, I’m in because I believe it will make a difference to me and the organisation and it will help me make a difference to others too.”

3.     Road-mapping: creating a clear pathway forwards people can embrace

People will jump on board with change if they believe in it – and also if it’s easy to take part. Providing a clear route forward that people can enthusiastically join in with, is essential to carry people along on the journey with you. Leaders need to communicate the process to be followed and set clear expectations of teams, alongside the tailored believable case, to make sure everyone is clear about their role in delivering the change, and how they will be supported to do it.

Role modelling is also vital at this stage to emulate the behaviours needed for successful change. Your people need to see their leaders behaving differently and their colleagues and co-workers modelling the new behaviour. Individuals often consciously align their own thinking and behaviour with those of other people—to learn and to determine what’s right.  So, providing a behavioural roadmap as well as a practical activity-based will help your people understand the actions they need to take.

4.     Ability: equipping people with the skills they need to behave differently

Once your teams believe that change is required and are bought into it, you can focus on preparing them and providing them with the tools they need to deal with whatever comes their way. Here leaders need to equip their people with the skills they need to behave differently – and ensure they have opportunities to practice and demonstrate the new behaviours in their roles.  Teams need to have a collective mindset of ownership and responsibility, optimism, respect for each other and a strong belief that they really can and do make a difference.

We utilise our MGI Mindset, Language and Actions Toolkit with organisations to ensure team members and leaders alike have the skills to:

• Evaluate situations critically and come up with proactive options, alternatives, and solutions
• Self-manage their emotions and reactions to the necessary change
• Create and maintain positive momentum using effective, positive communication and language
• Exhibit high levels of collaboration, co-creation, and cooperation with colleagues and team members.

5.     Reward: delivering associations and consequences that shape behaviour

Once your people are involved in the change programme and working towards embracing new behaviours for the long term, leaders need to address the question “Is it worthwhile to keep going and see this through?”. It’s critical for leaders to reinforce and reward changes in behaviour and ensure systems, structures and processes support the changes your people are being asked to make. Offering reward for demonstrating the right behaviours and openly recognising them throughout the programme and beyond, will help to keep up continuous momentum. A rewards programme, coupled with the consistent communication of the positive outcomes being delivered by the change and constant reminders of the personal benefits to be gained, will be a powerful combination to help your people see it through.

How can we help?

If you think we can help your business thrive through change, book a consultation with us, and we can tell you more about our Transformational Change Training Programmes and Toolkit.

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1. Spending time to find the truly compelling reasons for everyone to engage in the change and communicating it openly to build trust. We call this creating the believable case.
2. Equipping everyone with some key skills to help them engage with and manage through the change process, ensuring the change is successfully delivered.

Spending time on these two steps in advance of the change process or very early in the process lay strong foundations to ensure you get the highest level of acceptance, buy-in and engagement.

Ensuring priority is given to these people-focused actions will make any transformation involving your people, processes or technology easier to implement because your team will be ready, willing and able to jump on board with enthusiasm.

Building a believable case

Acceptance of, adaptation to, and engagement with change occur when individuals believe there is a valid reason for it. Creating a believable case that others can buy into and view as credible is a critical first step. Demonstrating a direct relationship between the change and the benefits that each individual and team will get when they plunge into the new ways of working will set you off on the right pathway.

The believable case may need to be adapted for different departments, teams or organisational level. It should be developed with the specific employee audience in mind and give a clear answer to any underlying questions that could be a barrier to engaging with change, such as: “What does it mean to me, my role and the business?”, “Is it worth it?” and “What will the benefits be?”.

When planning any organisational transformational change engaging at all levels of the organisation in advance of it and understanding the realities of people’s roles and challenges will give invaluable information to help create the believable case.  In our experience, many transformational change requirements are accepted across the business however, they are accepted potentially for different reasons.  For example, a major reason for senior stakeholders to transform the customer experience could be to focus on financial success, to gain and retain more customers or perhaps to achieve customer service metrics that set the business apart from competitors. The same change programme could be seen beneficially by frontline customer service team members, because it will give them more skills to be able to handle customer enquiries and feedback in a more empowered way. Both reasons are valid and important and would form the basis of the believable case at each level – a respectfully crafted rationale focused on these outcomes, appropriately delivered, will enable people in their own area to feel they can believe in the case, and it has value for them as well as the business.

Communicating the believable case

Communicating the change honestly and transparently to your people will be vital to creating the culture of trust you need to take change successfully forward into the business. Building trust will help people to come on the journey with you, so communicating the believable case needs to be done with the audience in mind.

Creating a sense of togetherness will help employees feel part of the journey, so tapping into an overarching and believable case that can be communicated at a corporate level, with follow-up communications to focus on the specific benefits by team or area will set you up for success.  Presenting the team-level benefits will demonstrate that you have listened and understood the realities of everyday working, in this way reinforcing trust.

A sense of involvement and a connection with the rationale for change will help your people say “Yes, I’m in because I believe it will make a difference to me and the organisation and it will help me make a difference to others too.”

Equipping people with tools to thrive through change

Understanding what skills and behaviours are needed to deliver the change when considered upfront can help people to adapt to new ways of working and help it to stick. Every transformational change programme is likely to require some new skills or behaviours to embed it into the culture of the business. Therefore, it’s important to identify the skills needed to support change up front and plan a robust training programme to upskill or reskill your people beforehand.

A successful change programme with a strong positive momentum is helped along by people in the organisation having the following skills:

–        Ability to evaluate the change situation, understanding the areas that they can have influence and involvement in the change.

–        Ability to self-manage emotions surrounding the changes that are happening and be equipped to manage any uncertainty or negative feelings to stay in a positive productive state.

–        Strive to create and sustain positive momentum via effective, optimistic and constructive communication.

–        Exhibit high levels of collaboration, co-creation, and cooperation with colleagues, customers and teams.

Equipping people with self-awareness and self-management tools in advance of change to build their resilience, enable them to focus on solutions, options and ways forward is a positive way to take steps to safeguard wellbeing.  Adding to this, strategies so that they can communicate solutions positively and constructively will enable them to engage with the change and be a force for positively driving it forward.

Putting in place a thorough programme that prepares individuals to embrace the change will lay the groundwork for a successful change programme, regardless of the type of change necessary. Making this the first step of your transformation plan,  prior to any changes to systems, policies, or processes will allow employees to engage in the change process with an optimal, positive attitude and the behavioural skills needed to make it a success.

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It’s our experience that organisations that focus on preparing their people with the right mindset and skills to personally engage with, and manage change, before moving ahead with them, gain more momentum for, and success in, the change process.  In any transformational change programme, having everyone capable to understand and manage their emotions, equipped with tools to help think through the options and implications of change and understanding how to respond to the change itself, lays a solid foundation to enable people to get involved in a more positive and productive way.

In this blog, we discuss how to effectively prepare your people to handle transformational change in the workplace, what mindset and behaviours will help them adapt and thrive, and how to drive employee and team engagement. We give you a proven framework for managing your people through the change process, ensuring those changes are embedded and sustained whilst equipping people with practical and empowering strategies to manage themselves.

A believable case for change

Accepting, adapting and engaging with change, happens when people believe there is a good reason behind it.  Creating a case that people can buy into and one that they see as believable is an important first step.  An organisation-wide understanding of what will make that case for team members, and being sensitive to the challenges or aspirations in different business areas, will help craft the compelling reasons for people to personally get involved.  For example, in our experience, the reasons frontline staff see as driving a particular change, can be very different to the drivers that are understood and critical to those in strategic positions. It is so vital that this case for change must appeal to people directly – they can then buy into it and feel that it will have a positive impact on them personally. With this in place, you will have oiled the wheels for change by bringing your people on the journey with you, and showing understanding, from the very beginning.

Ensuring your people are ready for change and equipped with tools to manage it

Once your teams believe the change is needed then attention can turn towards preparing them and equipping them with the tools they need to handle whatever comes their way.

Positively and productively supporting your people to adapt and change the way they work requires a structured and engaging process. Any implemented training needs to equip everyone with the self-management, mindset and behavioural capability to cope with whatever demands the change brings. Teams need to have a collective mindset of ownership and responsibility, optimism, respect for each other and a strong belief that they really can and do make a difference.

Team members and leaders alike need to be able to:

·   Critically evaluate situations and pro-actively come up with options, alternatives and solutions

·   Self-manage their emotions and responses to the changes needed

·   Build and maintain positive momentum through effective, positive and constructive communication

·   Display excellent levels of collaboration, co-creation and co-operation with their peers and teams

At MGI, our toolkit and training focuses on four essential building blocks to help equip staff to handle change and to thrive through it. These are:

1) Awareness – developing a real awareness of yourself and others

2) Mindset – a shared mindset of ownership, responsibility, respect and belief in your capabilities

3) Collaboration and co-creation – great teamwork through active involvement, questioning and supportive behaviours

4) Communication – positive communication and language that builds two-way trust

Embedding the skills for long term success

This positive mindset and behaviour needs to be sustainable and widely embedded to make a clear and measurable difference to the business metrics you are hoping to transform, such as employee engagement levels, employee satisfaction scores and productivity levels. Helping people to positively change the way they work and behave requires an engaging training process and a set of practical tools that can always be to hand to use in any situation. The MGI tools are observable, measurable and therefore coachable which is important because it is the collective use of such tools that creates the cultural shift needed to reach the outcomes you are looking for, both now and in the future.

Putting in place a programme which develops people ready to embrace change, will set firm foundations for a successful change programme whatever the change required. Putting this in place before any changes to systems, policy or process will enable people to more readily engage in the change process with the right mindset and behavioural skills to make it even more successful.

If you think we can help your business, arrange a conversation with us, and we can tell you more about our Transformational Change Training Programmes and Toolkit.

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