Managers play a key role in managing change.

Effective managers help find and crystalise future direction, set expectations for behaviour and performance and priorities, walk the talk and influence the direction of future systems and procedures.

7 Ways managers can help people transition through change

1. Work out who’s going to be in transition because of this change and how this will affect them individually and as a group.

2. Provide as much information to employees as is reasonably and prudently possible. There are no information vacuums in times of change.  The best way to control the grapevine is to provide consistent, frequent and reliable information. Discuss the positives and negatives of change as well as the rationale for change. Over communicate rather than under-communicate.

3. Manage and capitalise on the Separation, Crisis and Rebirth Stages.  Build in ways to help people let go of the past.

• Legitimise concerns.
• Explain the process.  Giving people tools to explain their behaviour can “unblock” the process.
• Stay calm and professional.
• Allow space for venting feelings.
• Be firm with regards the basic position but flexible with inconsequential items.
• Focus on long term benefits.
• Show concern for staff.
• Encourage staff discussions of change and their reactions to it.
• Allow time for person and collective stocktaking.
• Work to re-establish control, understanding, support and purpose of staff.  People need some control somewhere – help them create areas of control.  They need to understand the change and their reactions to it – work to help them increase their understanding, set up and improve a support system, have a sense of personal purpose.
• Focus on quick successes and small wins.
• Encourage your team to let go of the old.
• Praise positive behaviour.
• Generate involvement in the solution by engaging your team in the problem solving process.

4. Allow symbolic endings – (eg: farewell parties). Let employees sum up their past.  It helps them to let it go.

5. Facilitate the beginning of the new. Clearly articulate the new behaviour and attitudes that the changes are going to require – don’t be abstract, be specific.  What people need to know is: What’s the attitude?  What’s the behaviour?  Tell me how I am supposed to be handling this

6. Reduce, to the extent you can, the number of changes that you are dealing with at the one time.

7. Manage your own transition – actively seek information about your own losses, accept that you will also go through a period of mourning. Take time alone to think and imagine. Vent only with your family or other managers in private.

Ingrid Cliff is a Brisbane based Business Development and Human Resources Consultant to Small and Medium Businesses with her company Heart Harmony www.heartharmony.com.au.