Change occurs no matter what happens…
I am always reminded of the old Miami Heat commercial when Pat Riley first became coach that said something along the line of “Change: the only thing is life that is certain is change and when it rears its beautiful face, you embrace it."
That being said, here are 3 important keys to managing change more effectively:
1. Strong Leadership: your managers and leaders have got to be on top of the change that is occurring and not hiding from it. The thing about change is that it is often a very complicated and traumatic time for people, so leaders have to be out front talking about the changes being made and helping relieve those fears.
2. Communications: The same as with strong leadership, you need to be really open in your communications during the process of change. Because if you aren’t communicating what is happening, the void will be filled by information that you are not going to lik.
3. Strategy Matters: As a leader, you have to have a strong strategy for the change that you are undertaking. And, the strategy is important because you can’t afford to be willy nilly and jump back and forth between different ideas over and over…so you need to take a few minutes to think through a strategy and several contingencies.