Leading Change Book-Book on Leading Change

Leading Change Book

Have you been looking for a leading change book containing useful practices for dealing with a myriad of change situations?  Perfect Phrases for Communicating Change is the leading change book with phrases and information to help you handle change situations at work, like a new boss, new peers, layoffs, or a new strategic direction.

Readers will not only benefit from phrases, but also from concepts and tips in this leading change book.  They are useful to consider during each phase of change, such as announcing or executing and sustaining change. 

This leading change book also details the many factors to consider when communicating change virtually.  Many leaders must lead change with people who are not in their own office, and sometimes not in their own country.

The core of Perfect Phrases for Communicating Change is hundreds of ready-to-use phrases to assist managers with successfully communicating through any change situation.  In this leading change book the phrases are organized into five chapters: New Structure, New Strategy, New Projects, New Leadership, and Handling Resistance.

Readers will also learn how to deal with the most common change communication challenges.  Some of these are announcing change, responding to questions, overcoming fear, creating urgency, and addressing power struggles and career issues.

Also included are many ways to keep your employees motivated during change.  Because of the disruptive nature of change, it is very difficult to keep morale up all the time.  However there are actions you can take to ensure that motivation and morale stay as high as humanly possible.

There are also approaches to coaching during change in this leading change book.  Successful managers coach their employees to success, especially during change.  Leaders guide their employees through the storm.  In this book you’ll find separate approaches to coaching around emotions, coaching for skills, and coaching for flexibility and adaptability.

Leading change is also not just about you.  You need to rally your team and get them focused and working together to produce results.  In Perfect Phrases for Communicating Change you’ll find 4 key ways to rally your team through change communication. 

Do yourself, your colleagues, and the leaders who work for you a favor and check out the leading change book Perfect Phrases for Communicating Change, and learn how to lead any change successfully.

 

Leading Change Management-Leading Change Management Skills

Leading Change Management

Change can be a very scary word.  It at once can eliminate the sense of security, instill fear and paranoia, and be the best thing to ever happen to a company or individual.  People sometimes tend to resist change in their own lives, this only compounds when change is introduced into the corporate world.  Leading change management can be a difficult task to accomplish, especially if it is not approached in the right way.

Mentioning change can offset people in a number of ways.  The first consideration when approaching change management is the attitudes of the employees.  Some changes are necessary, but without the support of the people working in the company, it can be strenuous.  One way to mitigate a negative attitude in employees is to take their thoughts into consideration.  Make them feel like they are part of the change.  Everyone wants to feel included, even the ones not making the decisions.

While considering the thoughts of the employees, remember what change can mean to them.  Leading change management is not just about changing the processes.  It can really have an effect on the minds and hearts of your employees that will be most affected.  Try and understand the emotional and mental distress of large changes.  People may fear that they are losing their jobs, being shuffled out of their comfort zone, or losing their responsibilities.

Some tactics to overcome these fears are to implement situational strategies that encourage people to participate in change.  Another method is to inspire positive buy in from key employees.  More importantly, focus on innovation versus reactive thinking.  If an employee hears the news, they will automatically start thinking of how it will affect them.  The bottom line for your employee is not how it affects the company, but how it affects them.

Another consideration for leading change management is the steps of change.  In every company and situation, you may have an end goal in sight.  That end goal may be a complete 180 from the current practices.  People will resist such a large change if it happens all at once.  However, if you take the change into incremental steps, you take away the wariness.  People will support small, incremental change, but resist large change.

All in all, leading change management can be a difficult task if not undertaken properly.  By diffusing resistance to change and creating readiness for the coming change, you allow your employees to be part of it.  If they feel like they are part of the change, they are less likely to resist it all together.  The main consideration for any change management is your employees.  They can be the defining feature of whether change is accepted easily or not.  Change is not always easy, but by taking these suggestions into consideration it can go over a lot easier.

Change Management Training-Training for Change Management

Change Management Training

Leaders who get change management  training are better prepared to overcome change resistance.

NRG is the anti-dote to the apathy, stress and resistance of change. NRG means buy-in, commitment, action, engagement, motivation and excitement all in one.

PeopleNRG NRGize Change Management Training programs are proven through successful use by companies and teams around the world. We have NRGized change at family-held business, global corporations, as well as federal and city governmental agencies. We have worked across industries and organizational levels: from the most executive teams to stand alone interventions for a team or department.

6 Steps to Less Stress

Someone asked for our top tips for reducing stress - here is the condensed version:

Breathe: 10 to 30 minutes a day of breathing exercises will kick in your parasympathetic nervous system and send positive signals and hormones and chemicals through your body to relax you

Relax your body: Take time out to just relax. Whether it structured relaxation techniques which have similar value as breathing, or stop and do nothing, your body needs a rest..

Eat Properly: Under stress people tend to eat too much, and junk,..or skip eating…either way is no good. Eat your meals and healthy snacks to keep your mind and body functioning clearly

Ask for what you want: Stress is often created from not getting your needs met – speak up and ask for what you need – with your colleagues, manager and loved ones. Setting limits professionally and making difficult requests will help you Reduces Stress by
• Helping you feel powerful
• Get what you want / need
• Build mutual beneficial relationships

Think Clearly – Our mind has a way of creating stress – you will feel and experience the stress of a deadline whether there is actually limited time to get a task done or whether you just THINK there is limited time. Reflect on your thinking patterns – challenge and replace the ones you see are not based on facts, or on facts that are no longer true about you, others and the world.

Humor & Happiness – Make the time to laugh everyday and do things you enjoy. Joy is the perfect antidote to stress. Even if it is just 5 minutes a day just for you – watch a funny show, play a game, pray, take a walk with a friend – it will do wonders. If you are completely stressed out, take time to make sure your life is built on what makes you happy.

Exercise – The ultimate stress killer: endorphins. Exercise to prevent and reduce stress.

Goals, Will, Fear and Overthrowing Hitler

I just watched the movie Valkyrie with Tom Cruise about Claus von Stauffenberg’s plot to kill Hitler. It provided a stunning look at the factors of will and fear in leading change.

Stauffenberg led a coup d'état. He is extremely motivated to change the government so that he can restore Germany to its proud past before Hitler began rounding up and killing millions of people.

Yet he fails. Why? He had the traits of a change leader: passion for the change initiative and a vision that people would buy into – to get rid of Hitler. He also had other senior ranking and influential people on his side and a reasonable strategy. Plus he had “good” on his side. It boils down to lack of will and fear.

Just because you have a “good” goal does not mean you have the “Will” of leaders

One reason he seemed to fail was misreading the will of the key leadership. It was a good goal – to topple Hitler. But that was not enough. Enough people were not committed to – they were not willing to risk their lives for it.

The same is true for any “good” goal – like losing weight or quitting smoking . People fail all the time at achieving these “good” goals. Is it because they don’t have the tools to achieve these goals? No - diets, pills, exercise plans and self help books abound. Is it because the tools are too hard to use? No - how much easier can putting a patch on your arm and chewing gum be to quit smoking? It is as simple as their will to change is weak - their desire to change is not bigger than the obstacles in the way. Whether the obstacles are poor self image, self hatred, or other psychological factor, their will to change is less. The same is true in this movie.

The will of leadership was not stronger than the opposition. There was some will to topple hilter, but not enough. Hitler supporters were willing to kill to keep Hitler in power. The change agents were not all willing to die to win.

The “Will” must overcome the level of fear

Even if you have the will to change, that is not enough. One has to overcome the fear of looking stupid, being ostracized, or in this case being killed if you fail.

The top leaders had a few hours to decide if they were willing to follow the coup. There were a few hours where it was unclear if Hitler was dead, during which a thousands of troops led by Stauffenberg’ began taking control of Berlin. As this began, many leaders supported the coup. But when they heard Hitler may be alive, many leaders were so scared, they stopped their support for fear of death by Hitler. If they had charged onward, they could have succeeded in their change. The had momentum and thousands of troops on their side. Yet, their fear of Hitler and dying was so great, they gave up. Despite knoing how morally reprehensible Hitler was, they did not have the will to win.

Changing the Stove

We had to get a new stove. It was clear it wouldn't be working soon. But we waited. And waited. The burners on the stove slowly weakened. The oven completely broke.

Why rush into buying a new stove. There are so many to choose from. We will take our time, we said. We decided it was summer, so we could just cook on the grill.

As July turned into August, and school was about to begin, we couldn't put it off any longer. We started looking. We had our ideal versions in mind. We shopped. Days passed. School started. We could wait no longer, we had to buy. We made a choice that met our needs and budget.

When it arrived, it looked strange. We missed our old range - the lines, the look. Where is the overn light button? How do you set the oven temperatture? And we kept burning the food. This stove was so hot. Sure, we could boil water 5 times faster, but we were splattering sauces and burning sautes. It took a few weeks, but we started to get the hang of it. Sure, we had to keep looking for which dial heats which burner. However, we stopped burning our food. And then one day we said "How did we live with that old stove!"

This clearly follows the stages of change people go through

1. Avoidance
2. There's no choice but to change
3. The hard work of change
4. Learning the new way
5. Satisfaction with the change

GPS's, Learning and Leadership Dependency

I think GPS's make people less open to learning.

Finding your way used to be the way it was in life. We would look at maps, call people for directions, stay alert for landmarks. We would have to talk to more people, have more relationships and be open to learning the route. It would keep us in the state of not knowing. This is good for us. Life is all about learning. Learning and growing and developing.

Now with GPS's, you can drive, talk on your cell and follow directions all at the same time! Some would say this is progress. It could be argued it is more efficient, however I think it makes people less aware of their world. It makes you feel like you know it all. I can drive from any airport to any client with a GPS and feel confident I know where I am going.

I think this builds a false sense of security into people. At work, we often don't know what to do. But there is no GPS at work..or is there? The leader is a GPS. So people don't learn to think on their feet, but rather become more dependent on stuff outside of themselves, such as their leaders.

When they first came out, I refused to buy one - because I was too cheap - but now it is out of principle. I like asking for diretions. I like getting lost - it keeps me connected to the environment around me, it allows me to discover the world I am traveling in and teaches me to be self-sufficient.