When you‘re creating and communicating your change plan, build in achievements that can easily be made visible and celebrate success early so that those who have achieved can be rewarded and those who were not involved can see quick wins.
Some of these can be generated by early involvement and engagement of staff members who are not normally involved in change efforts. Find out what they think of the changes as they move through the change curve over time and capture their transition.
If some of those people are resistant to the change, ‘acid testers’, even better - they often have great ideas for enhancing and, once won over become your ambassadors back in the organisation.
Your L&D and communications colleagues can often help you to identify those that will take the most ‘winning over’, because they regularly have to do the same.
A final thought, lifted from John Kotter’s explanation of Step 6 challenges us to remember that it is planning and not praying that we need in this phase.
Short-term wins rarely simply happen. They are usually the result of careful planning and effort. Why don’t people plan for these? Often they are overwhelmed with the tasks of the change effort and simply take their eye off this particular ball. In other cases, people don’t even try because they believe that you can’t produce major change and short-term performance results.
Finally, the lack of short-term wins can often be traced back to insufficient management expertise on the guiding coalition or a lack of commitment by key managers to the change initiative.
Some useful reminders we think ...
