Fostering a Positive Climate For Change

Innovation, consistently high standards and speed are necessities in the competitive environment of today's business world. In this fast-paced business world, there is little room for error or experiment. In both small and large organizations the pressure for success is huge.

Management has changed in the Information Age. Managers today are expected to move forward with their own agendas and make their mark within as little as 18 months. However, is it often forgotten that these agendas need the support of key people, and as a manager, you will have to gain and retain this support in order to achieve success.

What do employees look for in a manager today? If you ask employees what they expect of their manager, you will hear vastly different answers. They look for information that will enable them to size up the kind of human being their manager is and what personal interests he or she brings to the position. They want to know whether it will be worth adapting to the person.

Even if the company and the department is doing great work, one of the first questions that employees put to their manager is whether he or she has a plan and where their ideas will fit into it. If any changes divest the employees of authority or tasks of which they are especially proud, immediate and substantial resistance is likely.

On the other hand, employees also want, and need ambitious goals. For a goals program to be successful it must address four important points:

1. It must make clear that the manager does not intend to impose some preconceived plan on the employees without recognizing the special features of their situation.

2. It must show the employees that it takes into account both their manager's legitimate interest in success and their own long-term interests.

3. It must be characterized by a balance between stability and change and demonstrate respect for significant achievements of the team.

4. It must be easy to communicate tangibly and inspiringly within the company and to the outside world.

Successful managers are able not only to look at the multitude of issues facing them but to choose the right ones as well. Now, that certainly doesn't mean they do what the employees want, but they should examine desired goals for their effects on employees. Experience shows that managers should always be sure to formulate at least one stability-related goal for every three goals related to change. It is the only way to generate a positive climate.

An important factor for managers to foster a positive climate for change is to ask questions differently. Question by question, with great respect for what was done in the past they systematically piece together a picture of the current situation. These are called "reflective questions" because they get people to think.

Successful managers use a second group of questions as well. These are called "resourceful questions," meaning that they are questions intended to help systematically identify strengths. Therefore, ask your employees about the departmental projects they are proud of, how they managed to get through last year despite the tight personnel situation, what strengths they have honed in the last two years, what strengths they used to have and what would be needed to regain them.

What you should not do under any circumstances if you want to establish a positive climate for change is ask about the cause of problems. It is considerably more helpful to assume that your employees have so far undertaken everything they could to solve the problems at hand.

Every experienced manager knows that the solid arguments for changes that are awaiting decisions will be of little use if the requisite climate does not exist among the employees. The image of the heroic new manager who acts quickly and assertively still exists in many companies, but these strategies seldom work without the trust and support of the employees.

Therefore, you need to ask yourself these four questions:

1. How much trust do the employees have in my abilities?

2. What do I know about their strings?

3. What strengths urgently have to be developed?

4. What projects can develop the strengths?

These answers to these questions will go along way in helping you foster a positive climate for change in your organization.

Copyright©2008 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.

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