Managing director expertise Change processes

Leading change in medium-sized companies

The ability to continuously develop further is a key success factor for competitive companies that have been successful for generations. Initiating development, learning and change processes, creating an appropriate culture for this in the company and leading the changes to the desired result is a key area of responsibility for managing directors.

In our blog you will find best practices on the topic of change as well as impulses on questions such as:

  • How do you organise a cultural transformation?
  • How do you lead an agile transformation?
  • How do you manage to increase the willingness to change in your company?

 

To our "Compact knowledge for managing directors„.

Generational change in medium-sized companies - organisational development | executive coaching
Photo | created with AI

The SME sector is the engine of our German economy. This makes it all the more important that the generational change at the top of medium-sized companies is successful. We support medium-sized companies in shaping this change in personnel and the associated cultural change and leading it to success.

In this article, you will learn how the planned generational change can succeed.

Generational change in medium-sized companies - success factors

Managing resistance in transformation processes - Organisational Development | Executive Coaching
Photo | Anton Vierietin on Shutterstock

Resistance is a normal part of change. Recognising this is the first step in transforming the supposedly destructive power of resistance into a productive force for change. How do you proceed afterwards? This article provides you with recommendations for action. I also outline how you can succeed in permanently increasing your company's willingness to change.

Managing director knowledge: Understanding resistance in transformations and using it productively

Board meeting on change communication - Organisational Development | Executive Coaching
Photo | Cartoon Resource on AdobeStock

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

This article explains the central factors of successful change communication.

Managing director knowledge: Communication in change processes

Management tasks in transformation processes - organisational development | executive coaching
Photo | Angelo Giampiccolo on Shutterstock

Recent years have shown that companies - regardless of size - are much more challenged to change in shorter cycles and sometimes more profoundly.

In order to remain competitive in a volatile environment, many companies are questioning their culture and initiating cultural changes. Success depends on various factors, including to a large extent on the executive managers. They have a key role in this change process. Read this article to find out what tasks are associated with this role.

Cultural transformation: role and tasks of executive management

Bernd Kratochwille, Head of HR Blanc & Fischer
Photo | Kratochwille

Various factors have triggered the change in corporate culture at the BLANC & FISCHER Group. But what is involved in changing the management culture? Who defines the new culture and how can employees and managers be won over to it? Bernd Kratochwille, Head of Corporate Human Resources at BLANC & FISCHER Corporate Services GmbH & Co. KG in Oberderdingen, Swabia.

And at the end, he summarises his explanations in a checklist for cultural change.

Leadership culture in transition: Best practice transformation in SMEs

Team culture role-based working - Organisational development | Executive Coaching
Background photo | vienna reyes on Unsplash

Many companies, including medium-sized ones, are questioning their tried and tested structures and organisational forms. The desire for more agility, the workers' demand for greater scope for creativity and more self-determination, skills shortages and increasingly complex business challenges bring the multi-level hierarchy to its limits. Team-centred and role-based working is pushing to the fore. But how does this structural change succeed?

From hierarchical structures to role-based working

Trapeze artist in the jump, change needs trust -Organisational Development | Executive Coaching
Graphic | Gwoeii on Shutterstock

"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.

Managing director knowledge: Change needs trust

Productive decision-making processes in transformations - Organisational Development | Executive Coaching
Photo | Orla on Shutterstock

In the context of transformation processes, many fundamental decisions have to be made. How quickly organisations manage to make these decisions in line with the desired goals also determines the success of the transformations. However, managers are often caught in the dilemma of wanting to involve as many members of their organisation as possible in the decision-making processes on the one hand, but having to deliver results quickly on the other. In this article, we give recommendations for action that help to resolve the dilemma and find a productive decision-making culture.

Decision-making culture - catalyst or brake in transformation processes

Elephant breaks through a wall - Agile Transformation - Organisation Development | Executive Coaching
Photo | Aleksandr_K on Shutterstock

More and more companies are working agilely or are at least converting individual company areas to agile working. Such "pilot areas" are, for example, IT or the innovation area.

Regardless of whether an entire company changes its culture or only sub-areas undergo this change, this process rarely succeeds smoothly. In this article we outline the different phases involved in an agile transformation and present what we consider to be the critical success factors.

Leading Agile Transformation Successfully

Transition Management: Lines of light quickly crossing the horizon - Organisation Development | Executive Coaching
Photo | robin lee on Shutterstock

We are in a transformation. In a transformation from an industrial to a digital society. This transformation is accompanied by drastic changes. Therefore, in this article we address three questions: What is a transformation? What distinguishes it from change? Why is it important to lead a transformation and not just manage it? We also provide recommendations for action to lead transformation processes to success.

Leading transformation processes successfully

Critical thinking: silhouette of a man's head in front of a blue circle - Organisational Development | Executive Coaching
Photo | Ben Sweet on Unsplash

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.

Critical thinking: For more success in change processes

Agile Leadership: Yellow sign with the inscription caution watch your step - Organisation Development | Executive Coaching
Photo | Painter-Master on Shutterstock

Many companies that agile working The companies that are introducing agile work expect shorter development times, more innovative products or a shorter time-to-market. They are convinced that agile working will enable them to react faster to changes and maintain or restore their competitiveness. So much for the theory. Here, too, practice shows every day anew that there is more to it than painting a new organisational chart and renaming employees Agile Coaches, Scrum Masters and Product Owners.

Agility - Classic stumbling blocks and how to avoid them.

Team culture in change processes - organisational development | executive coaching
Photo | rawpixel on Unsplash

The importance of team culture is often underestimated. In this way, the opportunity to sustain change processes with a trusting team culture is also missed. When we accompany teams and organisations in their development processes, we pay attention to the subtle subtleties in everyday interaction - 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.

Team culture - stepchild in change processes

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