January 19
The crucial ingredient in successful business turnaround
All business turnaround situations are different, however, there are one element that always have to be on top of the agenda: Employee buy-in.
Any manager who has struggled through a turnaround knows how crucial employee buy-in is; they also know how time-consuming and difficult it can be to secure.
Here are three ways to gain buy-in from your people during a turnaround:
Create a dialog
Too many managers assume that communications is a staff function, something for human resources or public relations to take care of. In fact, communications must be a priority for every manager at every level of the company.
By organizing discussions throughout the organization, spreads the company‘s vision and competitive situation so that individuals and teams can accurately align their own activities with the company‘s new overall direction.
Managers at all levels must learn to see things differently. They must put themselves in their employees’ shoes to understand how change looks from that perspective
Create targets
Break down the main targets into sub-targets and communicate these. People need to see who the can contribute to the overall targets.
Create wins
When it comes to change, people don‘t believe in a new direction because they suspend their disbelief. They believe because they‘re actually seeing behaviour, action, and results that lead them to conclude that the program works.
Real transformation takes time, and a renewal effort risks losing momentum if there are no short-term goals to meet and celebrate. Most people won’t go on the long march unless they see compelling evidence within 12 to 24 months that the journey is producing expected results. Without short-term wins, too many people give up or actively join the ranks of those people who have been resisting change.
Creating short-term wins is different from hoping for short-term wins. Actively look for ways to obtain clear performance improvements, establish goals, achieve the objectives, and reward people involved with recognition.
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Torben,
Well written, and absolutely timely. During this time of great economic turmoil there is great opportunity for improvement. We know that making improvements to our processes tends also to mean change. Of course there is always change, but these changes will tend to be much greater in impact. Companies are looking to find cost savings, improved productivity while reducing staffing numbers, and ways to produce products that are more attuned to the market requirements (making a lower grade of paper to increase sales). It is only through employee buy-in that these changes are successfully implemented. Likewise, management cannot make changes unless their elevator speech is honed and used at every opportunity.
Good article.
Ken