What Every Business Needs - a “Change Expert”
posted by agammy
Change can be an exciting and rejuvenating thing for many people, but imposed change (especially bad change) is always tough to swallow. You might be experiencing this with your clients who are implementing budget cut-backs, lay-offs, salary-freezes, benefits reductions, and all of the other things that come along with the somewhat dire economic situation. During this time period, if you can help organizations deal with and position change positively (especially the tough sorts of changes previously mentioned) it will get you a lot of business. Developing a change-implementation-and-management strategy is a great benefit to an organization because it can help overturn the employee loyalty issues raised by imposed change, as well as prevent employee stress and burn-out.
For example, in my last job as a sales rep, management would regularly make changes to branding, pricing, and policy without taking any input from the sales team or providing insight into the company strategy (they notably increased our prices three times in a 6 month period.) Perhaps the company had their reasons for acting this way, but as an NT, I resented being forced to communicate to the customer something that I saw as illogical, and lacking a bigger picture. I quickly lost confidence in management, and soon after the last big change was implemented, I left the company. Several other co-workers did the same.
This was a company that could have benefited from a “Change Expert!”
I found some great pointers in Type and Change: The MBTI Leader’s Resource Guide about addressing the various issues different types of people struggle with during transition. So if an organization has used the MBTI® to ascertain employee types, managers can be taught how to predict the way various employees will respond to change, and be ready to address individual concerns in a personal way at the same time the change is proposed. For example, feelers, who typically want to feel appreciated by and connected to others at work, may see change as disloyalty to people and the past, unless the impact on people is effectively addressed. Sensors and judgers, who are normally steady and reliable employees, can see a changing organization as violating employee loyalty and trust, unless measures are taken to protect the group or organization, and protect valuable traditions. In my own example, if management had explained our business model and the vision that led to three price increases, prepared us for the inevitable customer back-lash, or provided a customer retention plan to combat a dramatic price increase, I would have been much less frustrated. These are lessons management needs to learn!
Helping management roll out transitions in a way that meets the needs of the employees will bring huge benefits when it comes to employee morale, loyalty, and ultimately - retention through the tough times. If you haven’t already, consider adding this topic to your repertoire of services.
