How to Win When Leading Change

0:06Hey, it's Dave here from Coaching for Leaders. I shared an announcement earlier this week that I'm now producing a podcast for our members only called Dave's Journal. And I'm sharing a weekly fireside chat about 10 minutes on a very specific leadership topic that I think will be helpful to you. But I didn't want to just tell you about it. I also wanted you to be able to hear it. So I'm sharing here in just a moment one of our recent episodes that went out to all of our Coaching for Leaders Plus members, this one on how to win, especially when you're in the midst of handling change with your team.

0:41Here it is. Listen in. One of our members who's an executive leader recently asked one of our academy cohorts for advice on shifting the culture of a team. There has been a long-standing problem that's been identified with one of her teams by both her and other stakeholders in the organization. And since this team is in her portfolio, she wants to do everything possible to help them make a shift to a better way of working. The shift has been very clearly articulated, and people know where her and other stakeholders want to go. But an interesting reality has emerged. three groups of people on this team.

1:24The first group is there's a few people who are all in on the new way of work and the change and the shift and are ready to go and already doing it and excited about it. And then there's a few people who are completely opposed to this new way of work, don't want to have anything to do with it, like the old system, like the old culture, and want nothing to do with change. And then there's a whole bunch of people that are somewhere in between. And we got to talking about this reality. And the first thing I said is everything you've just said is completely normal. It almost doesn't matter what the change is, whether it is a new leader coming in, a new policy or procedure, marketing's rollout of the company's new logo design.

2:16I've been on a team years ago that literally had a months-long cultural shift around the size of forms that clients would fill out when we first started working with them. And three groups always emerge. In every situation, there's a couple of people who are ready to go, are all excited about the change. There's always one or two people who are dead set against it. And then there's a whole bunch of other people that are in the middle that either don't care, could go either way, don't feel strongly, or are wisely sometimes waiting to see how the wins are going to go. if this is just something we're giving lip service to, or if this is actually a change that's going to happen in the organization.

3:04There will always be the champions. These are the people who love the new direction and very quickly see the benefit of it and are talking about it. There's always going to be the naysayers. Those are the ones that, regardless of how logical or explained the change is and how important it is and how it's going to be better for everyone, will never like it. And in some cases, they're going to even actively fight against it. And then there's, of course, the fence sitters, somewhere in between. And the interesting truth, in addition to there being three of these groups always, is the largest group is almost always the fence sitters.

3:44It's just a reality of human nature. So what do you do? If you're the one who's leading the change and you want to win, as in you want the change to happen. How do you handle this situation with these three groups of people? My advice comes down to three words. Be a politician. Look, I am not a fan of most politicians for all the reasons that most of us tend to get dissuaded by politicians. But politicians, especially the ones that stay in power, are really good at one thing, winning. And here's how they do it. Smart politicians spend a ton of time and energy with their champions, the people who are on board with them from day one.

4:33They invite them to events. They give them photo ops. They commit to involving them after they get elected in their administrations. They put a ton of time and effort in making sure that those people show up on election day and are involved and vote for them and all of those things. And they also make asks of them, both for time and for money donations, right? A lot of champions respond because they believe in the mission. They get it. They're on board. They're ready to go. They're ready to do whatever they can. But they're not the only people that politicians spend time with. They also spend a lot of time with undecided voters because those people could go either way.

5:18And once they have a healthy base of champions and they get donations and they've got people talking about them, they know that every undecided voter that comes their way makes it just that much more likely that they win. That's why they show up at all those town halls and forums and debates where undecided voters tend to be featured prominently and their questions and their messages so they can make their case directly to the folks who are undecided. You know how they address their naysayers? They don't. They ignore them. Why would a Republican politician in the United States call up a lifelong Democratic voter and try to convince them to give them their vote?

6:00Even if they could make the case and be successful, the time and effort that that would take to get them on board would be so much better used on turning out more champions, asking for donations, talking to undecided voters, all of those things. It's not that politicians never do that. I mean, occasionally they'll do it for a photo op or something like that, but they don't spend any time trying to engage people who are on the other side in their campaigns. This is where being a politician and being a leader in an organization diverges. You do not get to entirely ignore the naysayers, but you certainly don't start there.

6:41The biggest mistake I see leaders make is giving way too much time and mental space to the one or two people who aren't at all excited about the change. And as a result, they end up missing everyone else in the organization that would come along if they put time and energy into it. If you know someone is a naysayer or they've said that they're a naysayer, believe them and move on. Start with the champions. Find out what they're doing that's working. Socialize their work inside the organization. Highlight the wins that they've had in public ways. Get them visibility with senior leadership. And ask them to help advance the cause.

7:24Make sure their emails and messages and talking points about what they're doing are shown to others inside the organization. Guess what happens when you do that? Some of the fence sitters notice. and they go, huh, I guess the wind is going in this direction. And some of them start to become champions themselves. Not all of them, of course, but some of them, a few of them. And when you see that happen, engage those fence sitters that show interest. Invite champions to engage their colleagues that are showing interest. Spend time listening to their concerns and responding to their questions and talking about what you're hearing from them and make time to involve them in the change.

8:04And then, after a few weeks or maybe a few months, once you have breakaway speed, then you address the naysayers. And yeah, sometimes that means that a naysayer exits the organization. But you know what I see happen more often? When a leader does a great job of engaging champions first, socializing their work, giving visibility to the things they're doing, engaging the fence sitters, more of those folks coming along. What ends up happening more often when that's done well is one of two things with the naysayers. Either the first, which is the naysayers notice what direction the wind's going. They see that the entire organization's moving in that direction.

8:52And a bunch of them look around and say, hmm, guess it's time to get on board. And they may not ever be an enthusiastic champion of the change, and they may not ever do it with a lot of gusto, but they get on board and they do the minimum they need to do to be part of the team and for the organization to move forward. The second thing that happens with naysayers when a leader does a healthy job of helping the team move forward and focuses on the champions and the fence sitters is some of them opt out. All of a sudden they find another job or another opportunity comes up or they find a position somewhere else in the organization and they just decide to opt out because things aren't going the way they wanted them to go.

9:33And that's not comfortable for them to still work for the team and stay inside the organization. So yeah, sometimes you do need to ultimately exit someone, but more often, those first two options of them either deciding to get on board or opting out are actually better for both them and you and for the team if they make that decision themselves. I'm not suggesting you become a politician in the traditional sense, but just that you consider taking a page from their playbook to make change work with your team. A lot of leaders run the playbook the wrong way. A change needs to happen, and they start by addressing the one or two people who are most vocal against it.

10:15Nope. Instead, reverse the playbook. If you do, not only will you win the change, but you'll make it so much easier for more naysayers to gracefully come on board, or not. Thank you so much for listening in. And if you'd like to get these weekly fireside chats from me on our new members-only podcast, Dave's Journal, it's now part of Coaching for Leaders Plus. I hope that you'll go over to coachingforleaders.plus to discover more by Friday, November 20th. Because if you do, you'll be invited to join me for a live online event. We're scheduling in early December for a behind-the-scenes look inside of Coaching for Leaders.

10:57And we're also now offering team memberships for Coaching for Leaders Plus. And if you start a team membership between now and November 20th, a personal live online visit from me to one of your upcoming staff meetings to take questions from your team on whatever is most helpful right now. Details on all of it at coachingforleaders.plus. Get over there by Friday, November 20th. And thanks as always for the privilege to support you. And I hope to see you here inside of our new members-only podcast inside of Coaching for Leaders Plus.