Practical Knowledge Change Management Transformation

"We've always done it that way!" is probably the most common killer phrase when it comes to defending the familiar and hindering or stopping new ways, ideas, improvements; in short, change. In this article, I give seven courses of action to help minimise the number of killer phrases, i.e. the frequency of resistance. The eighth recommended action shows you how to rhetorically debunk killer phrases.

"Change should become the most natural thing in the world in our company." Many managers are often not aware of what this means. Because the willingness and ability to change only becomes a natural part of a corporate culture when there is trust at all levels.

In this article, we share our experiences and give managers very specific tips on which levels of trust are most important if this cultural change is to succeed.

Communication is a key in change processes. Many managers underestimate this, do not communicate convincingly enough or communicate too little and contribute to the fact that the desired change goal is not achieved or is only achieved with considerable additional effort or that employees fall by the wayside during the transformation process.

That is why this article is about four questions:
What needs to be communicated?
What does a convincing change story look like?
Which channels should be used for communication?
How often to communicate?

Change is part of everyday life in today's world. But that does not mean that they succeed. Studies show that three quarters of all change processes initiated in companies fail. Reasons for this include a lack of transparency and emotional, even fear-driven discussions. Critical thinking is both an attitude and an instrument. In the first step, it helps to comprehensively analyse facts in order to communicate them convincingly in the second step.

Current studies show it, only about a quarter of all change projects succeed. Many management consultants have been earning money for years by assessing the "change fitness" or "change readiness" of companies. However, this does not have a positive influence on the success of change projects. Why? Because in many change projects the Leaders who initiate these changes are neither permanently involved in the process with their heads and hearts nor do they live the changes as real role models.

The importance of team culture is often underestimated. This is also a missed opportunity to sustain change processes with a trusting team culture.

When we accompany teams and organisations in their development processes, we pay attention to the subtle subtleties in everyday interactions - verbal and non-verbal. Together with the teams, we reflect on unconscious assumptions, stereotypes and patterns of perception and work out the benefits of the different abilities for teamwork and the company as a whole.