CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Senior Management Must Become

CHANGE LEADERS

You have established goals, set objectives, and devised action plans to carry out your objective and meet your goals.  Hold on tight because the fun is just beginning.  You and your senior management team must become change leaders.  You are the ones that must change the attitude of "That is just the way we do things here".  Your management team and their employees are going to have to start doing things differently----- and so are you.

By our nature humans resist change they did not institute.  Change is the end of the old ways and the beginning of something new.  The rate at which change takes place in our business environment has increased in recent years, yet human nature has stayed the same.  This means change will not be easy or quick.

You must realize people will respond negatively to change and try to anticipate their response.  You must react properly on a situation by situation basis.  Realize they will need time to explore what is new and consider how to deal with it.

You must become a gardener.  Just as Jesus said in John 15:1-2, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that does not bear fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful".  Think of the organization as the tree trunk, the departments as branches, and the employees as limbs.  Employees that cannot adapt having been given every opportunity to change will no longer be a productive employee and as change leaders you and your management team must be willing to remove unproductive people and possibly departments who cannot adapt to change.   Then prune (provide the resources they need to grow) those employees and departments who do.  This may seem harsh and uncompassionate, but it really isn't.  An employee that cannot or will not adapt to change is in the wrong place both for the organization and himself.  Neither will be at peace with where they are, until unproductive limbs are cut off.

In the case of unproductive employees you may find on further examination of their skills that they would be productive somewhere else in you organization.  So before you take that ever drastic step of terminating their employment with your organization be sure they are not just in the wrong place.

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