Four keys to embracing the pace of change

By Rebecca Stevens, Consultant at Co-Creation
28 October 2021

In the last year to eighteen months, global organisations have been amidst unprecedented change. Many companies have replaced their routine of a 9-5 in-house set up with a remote regime; conference room meetings have been replaced with virtual Zoom calls, and for many, every day feels like ‘dress down Friday’.

COVID-19’s outbreak in 2020 prompted the beginning of sweeping changes in organisations; of those who did some work from home, 86% did so due to the pandemic. And the shift to remote working shows no signs of slowing down, with Google encouraging remote working, if possible, and many other companies.

The recent changes to office life reflect work in itself: circumstances never remain the same –it’s a case of adapting to the pace of change and putting adequate measures in place to support your workforce. Granted, adapting and changing isn’t easy, particularly if you’re trying to change a set-up that’s been in place for a prolonged period.

The team at Co-Creation applies its strengths model for change management to help its clients embrace the pace of change in their organisations and we are pleased to announce that Dave Harrison and Rebecca Stevens will join us on 25 November from 17:00 to introduce you to their approach.

Focus on purpose

Often, companies view change as an obstacle blocking their path and hindering their short and long-term goals. However, there are times when you need to adapt or face the prospect of potentially irreversible damage to your team – or your organisation.

High street company HMV is the epitome of why organisations need to embrace change. In 2013, music consumption was dominated by streaming platforms such as Spotify, and Apple Music. The company needed to reassess their strategy, yet they opted against changing tact, despite 73.4% of music and film being downloaded or bought online; in short, they were applying a business model that was outdated and unsustainable. While the business has managed to avoid the scare, a failure to adapt its business model to accommodate the emergence of streaming services has seen its impact in the contemporary entertainment business diminish.

The moral of the story: when necessary, bring people in your organisation together around a purpose and adapt your mindset to survive in your respective market and thrive. View change as an opportunity for growth and an option instead of a hurdle. Your team needs to be purpose-led and create a vision of a positive future in which goals are collective, emphasising progression, not regression.

Develop a deep understanding of your colleagues

While you may understand your colleagues at face value, this isn’t enough to change the demands of your team –you need to delve much deeper into the intricacies of the people you’re working with to introduce high, yet attainable, goals for you and your team. Co-Creation helps teams develop a deeper understanding of their strengths, values, each other beyond the role, the person, their energies, enabling any team to be more diverse and adapt more swiftly to changing demands.

Build the right team dynamic

Before developing an understanding of your team, you need to ensure you have the right team in place. A great team is the cornerstone of every company’s success; you need to build diverse teams to deliver better outcomes but before you can build a desirable team, you have to identify the traits of an undesirable team:

• An unintelligent team (homogeneous), is void of diverse skill sets
• Team members mimic the behaviours of a dominant leader
• A diverse team with a dominant culture
• An overly intelligent team, in which team members demonstrate a rebellious streak

A team with one or several of the characteristics above could hinder the establishment of a positive mindset and prohibit change within your team. Co-Creation’s six-step process helps introduce a collective approach amongst teams:

1. Value diverse thinking and challenge unconscious biases
2. Proactively build diverse teams
3. Create processes to establish equality
4. Champion inclusive approaches
5. Develop conscious knowledge of energisers, motivations, and strengths in ourselves and our colleagues
6. Build vulnerability-based trust in our relationships & engage in healthy conflict

Take risks and be agile

Co-creation helps people to take risks and be more agile as they grow more comfortable working in this VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) environment, through finding vision, understanding, clarity, and agility. They also encourage leaders to build organisational structures that have both flex and fluidity, forming around projects and needs rather than assuming permanency in customer resource and knowledge demands.

Emphasise both a learning and growth mindset

Whether it’s at work, or in our personal lives, change is continual, and the evolution of circumstances can be somewhat chaotic. However, this does not mean that it can’t be managed; we need to be organic, agile and manage a mindset guided by the path of possibility.

Our thoughts have an overwhelming impact on how we behave; if we tell ourselves we can’t do something, then the chances are we’ll fail. Similarly, by telling ourselves we can, we greatly improve our chances of success.

Tweet

This feeds into Carol Dweck’s fixed mindset vs growth mindset philosophy: This approach prepares people to become more comfortable with ‘pace’ being a part of learning.

Not everything is known, and mistakes will happen –but a growth mindset is about not repeating these, not being fearful but being up for rapid learning and actively seeking input and feedback to help you. It’s about being open to challenges and being held accountable by your team members

---

About the author

Rebecca Stevens is an Occupational Psychologist with 16 years of experience working for organisations in the recruitment and assessment development arena. This has included designing, implementing and evaluating recruitment and development strategies and tools within the public and private sectors. She is registered with the Health Care Professions Council and a Chartered Psychologist registered with the British Psychological Society and qualified in coaching with the Centre for Coaching.

Rebecca is passionate about applying psychology to elevate businesses and individuals’ engagement and performance. In the last ten years, her interest in positive psychology has strongly influenced her approach to recruitment, development and coaching.

Connect with Rebecca

This article first appeared on Co-Creation’s website. View the original article here

---

More from our ‘What’s next for leadership’ series

More from our OD Special interest group