LEADING AND MANAGING PE… 11

DURHAM UNIVERSITY

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0:04
People may go through three phases as they move or
transition through change. Reconciliation-- the letting go
of current ways of working and behaving, which can be a
time of uncertainty and anxiety. Reorientation-- exploring
new ways of working and behaving aligned to what is
changing. Recommitment-- a time of acceptance and
commitment to what is changing. While individuals may
be in the Reconciliation phase, there are a number of
things that could be done to lessen anxiety or uncertainty.
Remind people of past successes. Ask people to recall
when they did something in the past that was similar to
the current change that was successful. What did they
do? How did they achieve it?

1:04
What did they learn from it that they could apply to the
current change? Tap a core capability. Create a sense of
familiarity by showing people how they can use their
capabilities to implement the change. For instance, if an
individual's core capabilities are in communications, these
skills can be critical when implementing change initiatives.
Ask such individuals to take key roles in the change, such
as drawing up and implementing a communications plan.
Engage familiar and experienced people. Some
organisations have brought back former and successful
leaders to take over the reins during a transformation.

1:50
You should also engage experienced people who already
work in the organisation by involving them early in the
change planning and asking them to take responsibility for
part of the change. Use familiar language. Language has a
powerful impact on how people perceive their world. So
think carefully about the language you use when
describing the change. Highlight what will not change.
Point out what will not be different as well as what will.
For instance, if employees will use the same skills to do
their work or if they will remain in the same work unit or
team, let them know.

2:35
The Reorientation phase is a time of exploration and
innovation, when staff who are optimistic about the
proposed change will want to get involved and contribute
their ideas about how to make it happen. It is also a time
which can create confusion and resignation, impatience
from people who want to get on with the change, and
cynicism from those who are sceptical about what is
happening and who want to know more about what is
going to change and how. Let's now think about some of
the ways to manage this phase effectively. Keep people
involved in making decisions about changes that will
affect them. Keep people informed of ongoing changes.
And also, even if there isn't much new to report, say that.

3:28
Use positive messages that appeal to logic and
consistency. And also use multiple communication
channels. Address any previous failures. Acknowledge
mistakes. Apologise and make amends. Publicise
successful changes. Use dialogue in order to see change
from the employee's perspective. Provide opportunities for
employees to express their feelings about proposed
change. We established a fortnightly communication as
part of our change process. What was important about
that was we communicated whether or not there was
anything new to tell people. And it might appear odd to
do that, but it's important to say there's nothing new
because that avoids creating a vacuum where people will
create rumours or come up with their idea of what is going
to happen while there's a gap.

4:30
It's also important to understand that different people
engage with different modes of communication better. So
you need to think about what are the ways in which your
group of staff hear things best. And that will be different
for different individuals. So we try and create layers of
communication so that people can often read things in an
email, have a document, have a conversation with
someone. And all of those things together create the
whole communication plan in terms of the different
methods, and approaches, and opportunities that we
create for people. And I think the other thing is to have a
feedback loop.

5:10
So how do you check in about whether or not people are
understanding the messages in the way you've intended?
Again, we tried different ways of doing that, whether it
was formal or informal meetings where people could say
what they felt or what questions they had about things.
And we also had informal meetings. We would call them
conversations in the copier because they were held next
to the photocopier where people could just come together
and have a conversation about, what does this mean?
How is this going to affect me individually?

5:43
I think it's also important to think about the structure of
messages and understand that if people are concerned
about their jobs, that's the first thing you need to address
in the message because they're not going to read anything
else beyond that. So if you put the last bullet point as
whether or not jobs are safe or at risk, that's going to be
lost in amongst all of the other things. And people won't
take account of the rest of the message. Engaging people
in generating and implementing innovative solutions is
also a key part of change. Innovation is the application of
a new idea to initiate or improve a product, process, or
service.

6:25
By definition, it is about taking time to try something that
offers uncertain payoffs at some time in the future.
Innovation should be encouraged as a key part of any
transformation.

6:41
The Recommitted phase is the start of new beginnings
and all the employees accepting the change and
recommitting to the organisation. Employees' commitment
for organisational change is a key determinant of
successful change initiatives.

Helping people
transition through
change
You were introduced to the transitioning
through change diagram during the last
activity, where we touched on the three
phases - reconciliation, reorientation and
recommitment.

In this video, we explore ways that leaders and

managers can support the journey through these
phases and we’ll hear from Steven Paterson as
to how he has supported this in his own
organisation.

In the video, we see that in order to help people

make sense of change and how it will affect
them, individuals and teams need the
opportunity to express how they feel.
Sometimes a ‘lose, keep, gain grid’ is a useful
way to facilitate this process, and you may find
the handout (downloadable below) a useful
resource.

Reflection point
Have you tried any of the approaches discussed
in the video? If so, how did it go? Is there
anything you would do differently?

© Durham University

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