How do you balance the need for change with the respect for tradition and history?

"You are here to learn and keep your mouth shut until you understand what you are doing." If I could bite off the finger that the client used to waggle at me, I would have. But the man was right. How are you going to lead the company into a better future if you do not know where the company stands in the present moment? My very first change management project was with a 25-year-old monopolist that did not change C-suite since the day it was founded. To get them to move anywhere, I had to merge with the company, posing as a regular employee for almost 4 months. Only when I understood what were their legitimate reasons to resist change, could I change other things without the culture collapsing.

Talk to middle managers, individual contributors, and senior leaders. See how different patterns or trends are perceived at different levels. Take note of how to target your messaging to demonstrate having listened.

Without the presence of psychological safety, a healthy company culture cannot thrive. Additionally, investing in training concerning providing and receiving feedback is crucial, ensuring it is leveraged for individual and team growth. Surveys should be led by experienced professionals who are separate from operational management. The role of the Culture & People Manager is paramount. Regrettably, the need for this position is often recognized only when it's too late.

Making important decisions shouldn't just be left to the bosses. It's better to involve everyone in the process, no matter what their job is. For example, a manufacturing company that had been around for decades realized they needed to focus more on being environmentally friendly and sustainable. Rather than just telling everyone what to do, they asked employees what they thought and even looked at what other successful companies were doing. They did this by holding town hall meetings, focus groups, and surveys. This made sure everyone had a say and was a part of the change. Thanks to this approach, the company found new values that worked for everyone. It wasn't just a decision made by the bosses and forced on everyone else.

Involve all colleagues to ensure maximum buy in from the start. Co-created values are far easier to introduce and embed than those agreed in isolation and cascaded down from the board room. Once launched ensure those team members caught role modelling the values are recognised and praised. Equally important is to performance manage those people who aren’t behaving in line with the values so everyone can see their importance. How well and consistently this is done is crucial to adopting and bringing the values to life.

This links to the point below about involving and empowering, but I've found it's important to make communication two-way, rather than a broadcast / tell - so let people ask questions where they might want to explore the benefits, understand them from different viewpoints or dig deeper into what it really means to them. This gets their motivation and involvement going nice and early.

My tip is to have lots of one-on-one conversations and then run workshops to highlight everything that is good about the current culture and how it can be leveraged to help drive the 'new' culture that is needed based on new business realities. It is absolute key to be respectful - most employees have contributed more to the company than us running the workshops, they pay our salaries (and know it!). It is mandatory to involve them. After these workshops, I would identify the 'early adopters', those who want to change and can influence others. Again, in discussions, we woud identify the best way forward. Responsibility must be given to line management, not HR or an external consultant.

Here are some ideas: 1. Challenge your direct reports to think differently about how they can solve an immediate work challenge. This insight can then be used to involve them in the redesign of related job roles and responsibilities. 2. Periodically gather your team together and task them to brainstorm, with you, about better ways to accomplish the group's core mission. Use the discussion to identify possible scenarios for re-configuring job roles and responsibilities. 3. Whenever the opportunity arises, push your team members to expand their thinking about the boundaries that artificially separate their job roles and responsibilities. Expanding roles create more opportunities for learning and growth.

It is very important to monitor and evaluate the change. Change in every organization and every transformation differs. It's never one size fits all. Neither the change strategy is casted in stone. Change is ever evolving and hence the need to continously monitor, evaluate and course correct. One important aspect is to close the feedback loop, which builds the end user engagement by getting the sense of being a part of the journey and a feeling of being heard.