Causes of Change Resistance

It has long been observed that resistance to change is a common characteristic of organizational life. For change managers and leaders, resistance is a big problem that can threaten positive change outcomes, cost lots of money, damage an organization's competitiveness and efficiency, and jeopardise its position in the marketplace. To know how to deal with resistance, it is important to understand where it comes from.

Mostly, resistance is caused by a lack of change readiness. There are 5 areas where this lack of readiness becomes most critical. These areas are:

1. Individual change readiness is weak. Individuals who lack the 7 change readiness resources and whose personal narratives are filled with barriers and problems find change really challenging, and often resist it. They do so because they don't feel confident with change. 

Morale and Change: What Role Does Morale Really Play in Your Business's Change Strategy

I was recently asked by a friend and colleague about the role employee morale plays in the change process, and how I recommend implementing change with either good or bad morale present.

First, for this discussion, morale will be understood to be the overall mood of an organization. This mood will be either good or bad, exist in varying degrees, and apply differently to people throughout the organization. The aggregate of all the individual moods within the organization becomes the overall morale; i.e. "The morale here at XYZ Co. is pretty good."

Secondly, it's very important to understand that morale is an effect. Many believe morale to be an underlying emotion, but it's not. Morale is an outward expression, a physical manifestation of some emotional state. As such, morale should not be the focus of change but rather a measurement of how successful a deeper change strategy is.

Dangerous Job Risk Management Methods

Unfortunately, injuries and fatalities at the workplace are part of our lives. Some jobs are more dangerous than others, and the danger and risk level they contain is much greater than regular office jobs. Having a dangerous job naturally means being exposed to risks. But that doesn't mean that those risks can't be managed, and correct dangerous job risk management can greatly improve job safety and keep injuries and fatalities at a minimum.

Here is an example of a simple, 5 step process to dangerous job risk management:

1. Identifying and ranking the major workplace injury and fatality causes: First things first - why are workers being injured or killed? This basic step will help to focus on the main risks of the profession (Causes can be highway and road side accidents, falls, injuries by equipment, etc....).

If You Want to Change Your Business, Start With These 3 Steps

Much of the work that I do is focused on helping businesses go from where they are to where they want to be. I always work hard to make sure that the changes I help businesses make are sustainable, meaning that the leaders in the business are the ones to drive the change. Though every organization is different, most of the challenges that businesses and leaders face involve creating a fully engaged, capable team of people that can execute the mission of the business better than the competition while adapting to the changing market conditions. While that's a daunting task, I help these businesses make that change happen and often these are three of the critical steps.

Clarify Where "There" Is

Many of the leaders I work with recognize that they are not where they need to be, but they have not yet clarified what the new destination looks like. 

So, You Are Just Too Busy Huh?

Has selling really changed in the past several years? Are people just too busy today to have a conversation with someone who can help them increase their business? You would be amazed how many times I hear on the phone from prospects, "I'm just too busy to discuss this." So I follow up with, "Are you too busy to discuss how I can bring you more customers?" or "Are you too busy if I can show you how you can solve a major business challenge today?" Whatever - the point is - are people really to busy or stressed to consider options that will benefit them or are they just turned off by anyone, no everyone, trying to sell them something?

I have heard from hundreds of clients over the years things like, "Thank you for sticking with it." "Thanks for all your effort to sell us." Etc. But I have often asked, "What if I hadn't stuck with it, you would have never known the benefits you have enjoyed." They all agree. 

Why the Turnaround Failed: Former Hostess Brands Executive

We're witnessing the last rasping breaths of Hostess Brands, the national baking company in which I briefly held a senior position. For years, the company has been one of the living dead, just like the hordes in Zombieland, a movie that celebrated Twinkies' iconic status. Now the end is certain, and it's sad because it didn't have to happen. You see, long ago Hostess lost touch with its greatest asset, its people.

In 2010 I joined the Hostess turnaround team as SVP and General Manager of the Atlantic Business Unit. My mission was to start delivering bottom-line profit through a route delivery organization nearly one thousand strong, from central Virginia to Florida. As I had done many times as a soft drink bottler, I launched the sales transformation by getting close to customers through our employees. I conducted countless depot meetings and ride-alongs.

Here's an epiphany conversation with one of our route salesmen; I'll call him John. John was in his fifties. Like many of our employees, he had been with Hostess a long time. 

Why Renting Plastic Packing Crates Is the Best Solution for a Business Move or Reorganisation

The number of cardboard boxes required would be difficult to estimate and therefore to budget for. Heavier items are best packed in smaller boxes, which would make them easier to lift, so a variety of box sizes would need to be considered. Cardboard boxes are typically supplied flat-packed, so time is wasted assembling and sealing boxes. Cardboard boxes vary in their strength and durability, and are broadly available in a single or double walled construction. Double walled construction offers the most strength but even then if boxes are exposed to moisture or excessive pressure they become weakened.

Plastic packing crates are manufactured from tough polypropylene, which makes them exceptionally robust and secure. They are specifically designed to hold and protect the items within them, so the risk of damage to contents is minimised. Most removal crates come in lidded varieties which means they are weatherproof and can be securely sealed.

Organisation Culture Change

Culture is essentially the way an organisation does things. Culture is something that is shared either in the organisation as a whole, or among specific groups or functions within the organisation. Culture drives the way in which people behave within the organisational setting. It's important to organisations because the way it does things has a direct impact on the effectiveness of the organisation.

Culture is difficult to measure possibly because it is not a hard process that can be adapted and changed through the directives and policy. Instead culture is intangible, and is built from a mixture of norms, beliefs, values and symbols that are played out in the day-to-day machinations of organisational life.

Furthermore cultures are dynamic and change over a period of time, resulting from group interactions, leadership behaviour, organisational structure and rules of interaction. As people leave or join the organisation the culture of the organisation will shift over a period of time, the size of the shift will depend on the intensity of shared experience within the organisational setting.

Setting Up Stability Between Family and Business

The main reason why a lot of people work practically 10 to 12 hours a day six days per week is for the leading reason for providing a better lifestyle to their spouses and children and see that they are happy. On many occasions they'd also like to be a part of the overall process of happiness, but rarely are they a part of it. Mainly because their business and work keeps them so busy and under pressure, they neglect this important and vital aspect of life. The primary reason for developing and generating income is to appreciate it with their loved ones which on the other hand get blurred while in the whole operation of creating wealth and establishing revenue.

Therefore, it's very important to identify a middle path that will make sure that a proper balance is established between family life and business life. In the event that this isn't executed, it is likely to create friction and tension in homes and over a period of time your family members drift apart and don't build a love and a bond within them. 

How Can the Role of Leadership Be Best Understood in Organizational Change?

Leadership as the Head

The Head offerr a prescriptive long-range strategic framing of the role of leadership in organisational change, common in bureaucratic approaches to organisational theory. The Head may take a normative re-educative approach influencing bodily reactions to stimuli; asserting power with mind over matter to affect change in a power-coercive approach; or making decisions to improve the wellbeing of the body to perform better by employing an empirical-rational leadership approach.

In this context the role of leadership relies heavily on the bureaucratic position, political power, authority and an implicit assumption that all change is a result of a planned change strategy, whether continuous or episodic. It also assumes that it is driven from the top in a linear way influencing how the Body responds.