In our first blog post about Change Leadership, we talked about the hallmark of a great change leader as being able to navigate complex organizations, understanding what makes people tick and using that knowledge to inspire and motivate change.
Well, no matter how good you are at doing that, if all your employees are hearing is “blah, blah, blah,” they won’t get the vision for the change, grasp what success looks like for the company, nor understand what’s in it for them, how it affects them and how they can help make it happen.
The best trick is to figure out how to strike the right balance between the serious nature of the change and conveying the details of all noted above, while avoiding corporate speak, high-level platitudes and the 'blah, blah, blah' of many change initiatives.
Another important thing to remember is that employees are people, and people like to laugh and have fun — and pay attention more when they do. I know I do! Here are some suggestions I've used on many of my change projects for making change more fun when possible. However, I would love to expand this with suggestions from all of YOU! Chime in to the comments below and share your tactics for overcoming the blah.
#2 Crossword Puzzles: Weekly crossword puzzles posted at the start of a change that would involve huge numbers of acronyms for technical terms. It became a thing and Seek 'n Finds were added.
#3 Intranet or Campus Scavenger Hunt: Create a mascot or icon to represent change in your organization. Place trivia questions in various places on your intranet (or in more low tech in places around your campus) about the change(s). Draw names from among the players for cool prizes.
I would love to expand this with suggestions from all of YOU! Chime in to the comments below and share your tactics for overcoming the blah. I will collate in a week or so for a quick and easy reference guide for your future projects.
Show your stuff and please chime in below in the comments section.
Cheers,
Elizabeth
