While the pace of change escalates inside organizations today, one fact hasn’t changed: in most cases, employees reject a new strategic direction, dooming the new plans from the start.
A big reason for the failure of new strategy rollouts isn’t that people resist change, despite what’s often said. Rather, people resist change they’re not a part of. To help counter this common problem, The Grossman Group has released a new leader guide for navigating company transformations, using best practices the Chicago-based leadership consultancy has seen to be highly effective with top organizations.
“When people aren’t part of the change journey, the result is predictable – confusion, apathy and disengagement that leads to the strategy’s failure,” said the guide’s author, Jason Greenspan, Senior Vice President and Head of Client Service for The Grossman Group. “We’ve seen companies reverse this trend by involving leaders in a smart and efficient process to solicit input and engage team members in crafting the new strategy from the ground up.”
The guide, Maximizing Strategy Development & Rollout with Top Leaders, provides executives with an overview and context on why so many company change efforts fail. It then shares an alternative process The Grossman Group has found to be highly successful, involving strategy “sprints” to help bring leaders and ultimately their teams along on a pivotal change journey.
Specifically, the guide shares three key actions that help drive effective strategy change:
- Informing leaders and employees so they have shared context on the business challenges and case for change
- Involving leaders and employees in co-creating the strategic plans so they feel a greater connection and a sense of purposeÂ
- Inspiring leaders and employees through a compelling strategy story that enables better employee engagement and leads to stronger business outcomes
At The Grossman Group, clients have seen impressive results from better engaging leaders with strategy development, including:
- More than 90% reporting a greater understanding of the strategy and path forward
- 90% reporting confidence in the future of the company
- Over 20% improvement from franchisees and employees in understanding of the strategy, confidence in the business direction, and trust in leadership
“Unfortunately, too many executives spend too much time ‘telling and selling’ their new strategy instead of creating an experience that brings leaders and their teams along the change process,” Greenspan said. “We know there’s a better way that brings leaders from skeptical bystanders to inspired catalysts of the vision and path forward.”Â
