Here is something I do not remember ever seeing before to call out a change in traffic regulations: a NEW sign pointing out a recently-installed stop sign at a street intersection.
I noticed the sign, on Main Street in Kansas City, Missouri, as we drove to an after-mass breakfast one Sunday. While I'd never paid attention to the absence of a stop sign at the intersection pictured in the photo, I guess one wasn't there previously.
The NEW sign to point out the new stop sign is a wonderful reminder of something that is easy to overlook in a change management strategy. Whenever you anticipate and implement change, consider ways to highlight the change for audience members. Through doing this, people impacted by the change can perform as well as possible, as soon as possible.
6 Questions to Highlight the New from Change Management Strategy
How do you identify opportunities to ensure your change management strategy and support for high performance align?
Use this list to identify instances where you are:
- Changing a situation with which people are very familiar
- Creating an unusual or unexpected condition
- Breaking a pattern
- Varying a routine that people are in
- Creating a situation which now has potentially high non-performance impacts
- Creating a situation with new risks from non-performance
There are more situations where you need to account for supporting audience member performance. These six are top-of-mind because each one could apply to the new stop sign.
So, whenever you start changing things, make sure you do everything reasonable (or maybe even everything possible) to ensure your change management strategy is not the cause of suddenly reduced performance. – Mike Brown
What does your future strategy hold?
If you are trying to prepare your organization for an uncertain future, contact us. We can design in-person and online collaboration exercises to get as ready as possible for big changes in and around your organization! – Mike Brown
Things aren't getting calmer. Is your organization identifying relevant, flexible strategies for prolonged uncertainty and dynamic conditions? The free Brainzooming eBook Figuring Out Your Direction in Uncertain Times will guide you in examining your brand priorities, developing new insights, identifying strategic innovations, and expanding flexibility. We share multiple, actionable exercises to:
- Determine your organization's new important and narrow priorities
- Identify diverse stakeholders, experts, and collaborators to expand strategic thinking
- Anticipate critical issues and operate more flexibly
- Explore self-disrupt opportunities before external factors trigger massive change
