By Tim Schneider

Just because you are comfortable and supportive of a change does not mean your job is done. You have to lead others through that change.

A couple of common pitfalls to avoid in leadership include assuming that everyone else is as comfortable with change as you are and that you cannot have any impact on the cycle of change. The truth is that you have great influence over how the cycle of change impacts your organization and no two people will react to change in the same manner. Your role as effective leader compels you to guide your team through the change event with the minimum loss of results and with maximum effectiveness.

Your role in leading others through change has an interesting little rub point. Just suppose for a moment that you do not agree with or support the change and cannot reconcile even the slightest elements of it. That does not let you off the hook in guiding your team through the change. Whether you support it or not, you must be a willing and enthusiastic leader during changing times. This is your responsibility to your team and your organization.

There are three primary ingredients needed to helping others and an organization as a whole deal with change. The first and a very critical element is input. The best time to seek input on change is before change occurs but that is not always possible because of business needs or issues outside of the control of the organization. Input from those affected is the biggest cure to the depth of the mourning phase in the change cycle.

In the most simple terms, it is allowing team members and other stakeholders to define key elements of the needed change. It is soliciting opinions about how to accomplish the desired outcomes and looking for the unintended consequences that were previously discussed. The effective leader lays out what the desired outcome is and then allows team members to provide input on how to accomplish those objectives.

This is not allowing the inmates to run the prison but rather an attempt to achieve full buy-in and support for a change initiative. Just because you are seeking input does not imply you are running your company or department as a democracy. You are still free and empowered to enact the direction or change that you choose. People are far more likely to embrace change when they have input and feel as if they were part of the decision making and direction.

This cannot be overstated. Input equals buy-in. It cannot be bought. It cannot be achieved in a slide show. Buy-in only occurs with input.

The second key ingredient of leading others in change is communication. Input reduces or eliminates the depth of mourning in the change cycle and communication will reduce the amount of time the mourning and embracing parts of the cycle last.

As a person in a leadership position, you have heard things like “no one likes surprises” or “I wish someone would have told me this was coming.” Those statements and those like it are cries for information. Information that can only be delivered through frequent communication.

In order to guide team members through a change event, communication prior to the event occurring is critical. Your team needs time to process the changes, see how it impacts them and find the positive outcomes. Through your personal communication, you will provide them with the answers and give reassurances that the changes are needed and the impacts will be minimized. Without the communication, they will fill in the blanks for themselves and you risk them focusing only on risk based or failure based outcomes.

The standard rule of thumb for change based communication is to over-communicate. If you meet with your team twice a month, double that in a changing environment to focus on those changes and provide redundant information. Send out weekly or even daily status updates that talk about the change and how it is going. Be more open than ever to answer questions and address concerns.

The most surefire way to raise anxiety about change and lengthen the time of coping and embracing is to effect the change behind closed doors. Changes need to occur with transparency and in full view.

The final element of leading others through change is developing cultural tolerances and conditioning about change. Without the consultant speak, that is putting your team or the entire organization on notice that you and your team will be nimble and in a constant state of evolution.

Easily said but a little bit harder to actually pull off. There are several techniques to utilize including reminding team members about the previous changes that they have encountered, worked through and embraced. Another technique is not to focus on the history of the company or department and focus more on the future or vision and the need to change to in order to achieve that future view.

Change tolerance can also be achieved in a daily operational manner. If you routinely change and modify work flows and assignments (i.e. rotating jobs and schedules), dealing with larger scale organizational change is easier. Condition nimbleness by rotating assignments, hours and even where a person sits. That also helps with reducing the comfort to complacency equation.

The final reminder about leading others in change is about you. Remember that the example that you set in change management is extremely important and the team you lead will take a big clue about how to deal with change from how you deal with change.