Leading change ... remotely

For leaders in these times of remote and hybrid work, change still has to happen. 

Guiding, leading and inspiring change can require some new and different techniques.

There’s still a requirement to have:

⏺ Engagement for change 
and 
⏺ Capability for change. 

This week I’m working with a leadership team to prepare them to better engage their team for change. 

We’ll be focusing on how to have better, more engaging conversations about change ... remotely. Handling tough questions, raising challenging topics, building greater human connection... online. 

Then it’s onto the skills the entire organization needs - to ensure teams have the capabilities to embark on the changes planned. 

This includes being able to work in a hybrid environment - where some people are onsite and some are working remotely. We’ll build problem-solving, sensemaking and decision-making skills. 

Whatever you’re changing, think about 
- engagement... for the leadership team,
and 
- capability... for the wider organisation. 

Tackle both for more successful remote, hybrid change. 

Bringing 3 skills together

A skill on its own is good. Another skill... even better. Three skills? Three times the goodness! 

The skills and capabilities we have work well on their own. But when they’re combined and integrated - even better. 

Working with a group of business analysts recently, we took the three skills of :
- questioning 
- facilitating
and
- visualizing 
and integrated them. 

Beyond just using the skills on their own individually, one then the other, then the other ... we used all three at once. Integrated. 

Engagement was better. 
Elicitation of requirements was easier. 
Progress was faster. 

These three skills can work well with each other, leverage each other and make our roles and challenges easier. 

For the team of business analysts, it was an experience I call a ’skills lift’.

Greater confidence and capability. 

And an exponential return on one, two, three skills, multiplied and amplified when they’re working together. 

Doing the work gives you the learning

Our desire for things to be easy can mean we might want to avoid the complicated and challenging stuff.  

We love smooth and easy progress! To be presented with the right answer or have the perfect path to completion roll out in front of us is bliss! 

When it comes to running your own business, solving a client problem or working on a complex task, doing the actual work is what gives us the learning. 

Making decisions and trying things out are learning experiences. Frustrating, uncertain, scary ... yes. But confidence and experience building as well. 

What is that quote about there being no sense of achievement without the challenge? 

We can tap advice, pick up some quick tips or even ask others what their ‘best’ answer is. 

More often than not, the better path is one where we experience it ourselves and learn from it. 

Adaptability is the capability

There’s plenty written on the skills we'll need for now, tomorrow and the next decade to remain relevant, employable, successful and smiling.

Predicting specifics for an uncertain future can be lottery-like: sure, we'll get the numbers right ... eventually, but just not all at once or all in the one game!

So it's not one skill or 30; adaptability is the capability.

It's having the quality of being able to adjust to new conditions. How well can you continue to see, listen, learn, connect dots, and then change your behaviour based on all of that information available to you?

The capability is adaptability. And plenty of people are just not that adaptable.

Adaptability is having a force and power of resourcefulness. To be able to switch from one thing to another or decide on different skills you’ll deliberately apply to solve a perplexing situation.

We all find ourselves in challenging environments and tricky situations - how well do you play a capability of adaptability?