Change management skills: Information and training programs
Change is everywhere in business today. That is why it is important
that managers and change team leaders possess strong change management skills
for your company or organization to move through a successfully change.
Change
management skills include leadership development (to get people
to believe in you), marketing and sales abilities (to promote
your case for change), and communication
skills (to help build support for the decision to change) and a good
understanding of the psychological and emotional effects of change.
The first change management skill you will want to focus on is your leadership
ability. Tips for being an effective
leader in the change management process.
- Management skill one: Set an example. As the top person in your business,
others look to you for direction, not only in terms of business needs, but also
related to behavior, ethics, and standards. If you want others in your business
to change, you must set an example for them to follow.
- Management skill two: Talk to people. The old school of business management
promoted the idea that the top person was off limits, enclosed in his or her
own glass tower. Leaders of today interact more with their employees. They manage
by walking around and getting to know their employees and learning about the
problems they are facing on a day-to-day basis.
- Management skill three: Be real. As a leader of change, it is important
to be as real and honest as possible in your interactions with others. Let others
get to know you. Being a leader doesn't mean hiding your emotions. By interacting
with employees on a one-to-one basis, you will build rapport and trust.
- managing skill four: Have passion. To be a strong leader, you must
have passion around your vision. Without it, you will soon find yourself facing
burnout. Leadership is tiring and saps energy at a very high rate so make sure
you are passionate about what you do.
Building your ability as a leader is the first step in
the change management process. When employees believe in you and trust
what you're doing, The campaign for change is much more likely to succeed.
Once a change occurs, it is very important to communicate
on a regular basis with all effected. Let your employees know what is
happening. If your communication skills are weak or you don't have a formal way
of letting your employees know what is happening, set one up before you hit this
stage of the change process.
Realize that although you can use these skills to smooth
the change transition process, you will never be able to completely jump from
one way of doing something to another without experiencing at least some resistance.
Change management one-day training workshop
Leadership
Skills
The
Truth About Leadership Success: Turning
talent into performance
This informative, entertaining program combines’s relationship building
with no-fluff research and “Beyond best practices leadership” to
deliver real solutions that turn talent into performance. This interactive session
covers a lot of ground and provides easily implemented, innovative solutions
that your people can use right away.
Suggested agenda
- How to be right without making people wrong
- The truth about trust: Listening like a leader
- Bad-for-business body language: How leaders betray their words
- How to avoid robbing people of their uniqueness
- How to get people to listen to you: Developing buy-in and loyalty
- How to get highly creative/difficult people to agree with you
- How to be more approachable and comfortable in your leadership role
- Being the best vs. being consistently chosen: The truth about likable leadership
styles
- Managing expectations and emotions
- Dealing with the resistance to change
- How to repair relationship damage fast: Action creates opportunity
- Understanding your contributions: The true value of what you do
Leadership skills article for managers in the midst of change
How to be right
without making people wrong: Garrison Wynn 2005
What exactly are we trying to accomplish by proving to others that we’re
right? We might win the argument but ultimately lose the relationship. Perhaps
a better, deeper-rooted question is this: Why do we lose sight of success, of
our big objective, when we feel challenged or intimidated?
When I prepare to negotiate, provide a service or turn my employees’ talent
into performance, I know deep down that if I make people feel valuable they will
see my input as having value. But in that moment when they are just hands-down,
across-the-board dead wrong, I sometimes can’t stop myself from letting
them know how incredibly wrong they are. When that happens, my ability to influence
them vaporizes on the spot, and I’m left dealing with the response I created
by making them wrong.
I think this is the most consistently counterproductive thing we do in business
and, I suspect, in our personal lives too. It may be the foundation of communication
breakdown. Maybe this behavior is so prevalent because it’s part of human
nature. Could we be natural born jerks? (Jerkdom – nature or nurture?)
If so, how do we overcome the urge to prove our point at the expense of our business
or relationship?
Wynn Solutions studied thousands of top communicators and saw a common behavior
among them: the practice of not making people wrong. We decided to find out how
they did it.
We discovered that these top communicators lowered their expectations of
the other person’s behavior before meeting with them face to face.It
seemed to reduce the tendency to overreact in the heat of the moment. Also, they
walked in the door with an agenda of not making the other person wrong and of
looking for areas where the other person’s knowledge was strong. So when
that moment came top communicators were not so ready to pounce.
This approach may sound a bit condescending to some, but it sure beats dealing
with communication issues you create for yourself by having to prove you’re
the smartest person in the room. It allows you to be right without making others
feel wrong.
©2005 Garrison Wynn
Communication in Action
Communication skills training for successfully managing change
"When transformational change efforts fail, typically, the problem isn't
with the change programs themselves. Rather, it's that they're not envisioned
or communicated in a way that builds followership among middle managers and
frontline employees. For major organizational change to occur, the initiative
must spread across organizational boundaries and down through hierarchies to
individual employees. It must also touch upon employees' fundamental psychological
motivations for working in the organization. " - Harvard Business Review
This insightful one-day program combines Wynn Solutions’ research of
5,000 top communicators in 323 organizations and 11 industries, with specific
strategies for building trust and gaining agreement. Going beyond best practices,
this session will show how employees can achieve their goals without stepping
on the toes of their co-workers.
Suggested agenda
- How to make people feel important, so you and what you have to offer will
be important to them: creating an effective environment
- How to overcome resistance to change
- How behavior can cause skills and knowledge to lose impact
- Communicating change: how to move positive ideas through the company
- Dealing with difficult coworkers
- The truth about trust: how to make sure people feel heard
- How to get people to listen to you: believability and clarity
- How to get people to agree with you: managing expectations and emotions
- The five things you should never say to a customer or coworker
- One-on-one communication skills: connecting with your coworkers
- The secret to success: maximizing strengths and minimizing weaknesses
- How to stay motivated in difficult situations
- How engaged employees drive customer loyalty
- Accountability: How to avoid blame distribution
- How to manage your boss
Communicate the Change - An essential management skill during times of change
Communications is the key to almost everything that happens, or fails to
happen, in organizations. This is certainly true for change initiatives. Effective
communications make the difference between success and failure. If leaders do
not keep people adequately informed during the change process, levels of uncertainty
and anxiety increase. This often leads to greater resistance, unproductive behavior
and lack of support. Consider using the following ways to communicate a change:
Conduct meetings with all people affected by the change. Explain how the change
will simultaneously help them as individuals, as well as the organization, to
succeed. Leaders should articulate the reasons that they found compelling for
change. Ensure that people understand the purpose behind the changes - the big
picture - and how they will be individually affected.
Be straightforward in describing the risks and possible downside to
the change process. If the change means significant loss to a work unit or certain
individuals, be candid in communicating the reality. Describe the support that
the organization will provide during the transition period.
Encourage people to ask questions and voice their concerns. Use active listening
skills to encourage input and demonstrate understanding of their comments and
concerns.
Communicate the vision of the change; then, whenever possible, have those
affected by the change develop the implementation plan.
Be available and emphasize willingness to answer any questions people
may have. Increase accessibility through leadership by walking around.
Clearly explain to people that change is essential for organizational improvement.
Some people will benefit more than others, but all are expected to accept and
deal with the changes. Sometimes this means giving people the hard choice of
changing or leaving the organization.
Managing Change with leadership
skills
Management skills for success as a change leader include:
- Ability to define areas
for change
- Managing change initiatives smoothly by anticipating, preparing and
responding effectively to roadblocks
- Creating an open, receptive work environment
- Involving people at all levels in the change initiative
Change leader skill sets - planning, project time management, coalition
building, decision making, active listening, meeting management, and communications
- come into play at all levels of change leadership.
Change management skills: The Top 10 Principles For Leading Change
Introduction: Most change efforts fall far short of their potential. Usually that's because
leaders fail to address the deep behavioral changes they are seeking. The
following management principles are at the heart of any successful change
effort:
- Keep performance results the primary objective of behavior and skill change.
- Continually increase the number of individuals taking responsibility for
their own change.
- Make sure that each person always knows why his or her performance and
change matters to the purpose and results of the whole organization.
- Put people in a position to learn by doing and provide them with the information
and support they need just in time to perform.
- Embrace improvisation as the best path to both performance and change.
- Use team performance to drive change whenever demanded.
- Concentrate organizational designs on the work that people do, not on
the decision-making authority they have.
- Create and focus energy and meaningful language because these are the
scarcest resources during periods of change.
- Practice leadership based on the courage to live the change you wish to
bring about.
Please call us at 888.833.2902 or fill out the form below for questions about programs, pricing and availability
Additional resources for management and leadership skills when managing change
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Managing Generation Y employees
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