A decade into the 21st. century, one thing has become clear: constant change is the new normal.
The question is no longer if, but rather "how." Companies that have learned to ride these waves of change are the ones that will successfully compete in today's economy and beyond.
In his book, "Change-Friendly Leadership: How to transform good intentions into great performance," author Rodger Dean Duncan gives readers the foundational framework and strategies to lead organizations through this ever-changing environment.
In Change-Friendly Leadership, Duncan shares four simple strategies to navigate change, which he names the Four Ts:
Think-Friendly behaviors include exercising curiosity, asking smart questions, and challenging your own conclusions. Sound thinking is at the center of every effective change effort. It doesn't necessarily have to be brilliant thinking, although that never hurts. But it needs to be sound thinking--thinking that raises the right questions and elicits a range of reasonable answers. Thinking that expands possibilities.
Being Talk-Friendly involves dialogue skills, listening to learn and understand rather than to rebut or overpower. Simply put, true dialogue cannot occur in an atmosphere where anyone is inclined to exert power over another. Command-and-control is the antithesis of an open and honest sharing of meaning. An atmosphere of mutual trust is impossible to establish if any of the participants are perceived to be holding their power ready for an ambush.
A leader is Trust-Friendly by consistently earning trust and extending trust. The language of trust is both verbal and non-verbal. It's both words and behaviors. It is not subtle. When used appropriately, the language of trust is deliberate and explicit, and it makes all the difference in every kind of relationship.
A Watson Wyatt study showed that high-trust organizations outperformed low-trust organizations by 286%--that's nearly three times--in total return to shareholders. Disengaged employees are enormously expensive. Engagement flows out of trust, and trust flows out of engagement. They are mutually reinforcing.
Being Team-Friendly means working with people in ways that foster genuine collaboration. When we're strategic about putting both the team and the work into teamwork, beautiful things can happen. "Team" is used to describe a carefully selected group of individuals who work interdependently, who are mutually supportive, and who bring out the best in each other as they strive to accomplish a set of specific goals. With a real team, in other words, the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts.
It's the Relationship, Stupid!
Managing change does not mean a narrow, lock-step approach that controls all the variables. It means setting boundaries around the chaos, challenging the status quo, and providing a deliberate and proactive process for getting from point A to point B and beyond.
Rodger Dean Duncan: Change-Friendly Leadership: How to Transform Good Intentions into Great Performance ($14.67 hardcopy, $9.99 ebook)
Margaret J. Wheatley: Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World (ebook at $9.99, paperback at $14.25)
John Agno: Can't Get Enough Leadership (ebook at $2.99)
John G. Agno: Can't Get Enough Leadership: Self Coaching Secrets (paperback at $28.99)