Introduction

Introducing new concepts, systems, or processes in a work environment is rarely as simple as sending an email and immediately getting the desired results. Successfully convincing individuals to change their behavior in the workplace requires:

• Clear communication about expectations
• An organizational training program that provides the necessary skills
• Consistent reinforcement and measurement

This might seem like a tall order, and indeed it does require a comprehensive overall strategy, but there are some simple change management activities you can do on a daily basis.

Meetings are the most logical place for change management activities because you have the attention of the entire group at the same time. You can ensure that people hear the message and create a greater likelihood of understanding what you say. Consider adding these change management activities to your next meeting agenda:

1. Status Updates

Have an agenda item for status updates about initiatives occurring in your organization. For example, if your organization is shifting to a customer-centric culture, a sales staff meeting might include an update about the new sales process that is under development. This is also an excellent opportunity to gather input from the sales team about how to be more customer centric and get the team to start thinking in that mindset.

Status updates should include:

• What initiatives are currently happening
• The status of each initiative
• The next steps for each initiative

The individuals providing the updates will have to stay on top of their assigned tasks, and others will feel more involved in the process, especially if they have the opportunity to provide feedback during status updates.

2. Reinforcement Exercises

If your strategy includes organizational training, one of the most important change management activities you can do is reinforcement exercises. The human brain will only retain so much information (10-30%) after a training session unless you actively recall the lessons learned. Adding a quick reinforcement exercise such as a quiz, game, or discussion about how to apply the new knowledge in the workplace will keep the information fresh in the minds of participants and encourage them to apply and use their new skills.

3. Introduce the Next Initiative

Make time to discuss the next change that is on the horizon, even if you don’t plan to roll it out for several months. Communicating early about changes to come will allow individuals to mentally prepare in advance. Providing regular updates about the plans in the pipeline will reduce the inevitable anxiety that people feel about change. Giving individuals an opportunity to provide feedback will make them feel more invested in the process and increase the likelihood that they will embrace the new systems. Clear communication about upcoming initiatives also demonstrates that leadership has a strategy in place and a plan for executing it.

4. Recognize Successes

Create an agenda item that prompts you to identify all of the successful milestones or accomplishments since the previous meeting. These could be as simple as an individual who exhibited one of the desirable behaviors identified in a recent training, or as significant as a team who measurably improved their sales numbers. When individuals know that leadership is paying attention and that they will be rewarded for their efforts, they are more likely to adopt the changes you are introducing and more likely to perform at their peak. Many leaders don’t realize how impactful recognition can be, especially in a public form like a team meeting.

5. Action Items

Every productive meeting should include action items that are assigned to individuals and have clear deadlines. Action items go hand-in-hand with status updates on your agenda. Everybody knows that they will be expected to report back to the group, increasing the likelihood that they will complete their assigned tasks. Action items also provide the benefit of keeping a project moving forward.

It’s unrealistic to expect individuals to change their behavior without some motivation. Including these change management activities in your meetings helps maintain momentum, gives leadership a forum for introducing new changes to come, and increases accountability. What agenda items did you include in your last meeting?

You might have heard the adage, “teamwork is less me and more we” before, and for good reason: this simple sentiment gets right to the root of teamwork. Yet, as simple as it is, for too many organizations, employees lack the skills they need to pull it together and “get the job done.” A lack of team-building skills among team members can kill productivity, negatively impact morale, and hurt bottom line results.

Organizational success is dependent on a lot of factors, both internal and external. When it comes to the people in the company, there are three primary components that must be optimized: structure, talent, and behavior. Like a three-legged stool, if any one of these components is lacking, the organization gets less stable and less able to withstand external pressures. However, when all three components are fully developed and in place, the path to organizational success is much easier to navigate.

It’s important not to develop each of these pillars in vacuums. They all depend on each other and should be strengthened equally. Follow these tips to optimize the three components of organizational success for your company.

1. Structure: The Right Roles in the Right Places

No matter how much talent you have in the organization, if the right people aren’t in the right roles or don’t have the authority to execute their roles properly, they won’t be able to fulfill their potential. This is where structure comes in. There is no single structure that is right for every organization. Even similar companies in the same industry might have different approaches, and each of them could be effective. When determining organizational structure, it’s important to consider two criteria: aligning with the strategy and providing the appropriate authority.

Official and Unofficial Hierarchies

The structure of an organization is defined by both official and unofficial hierarchies. Official hierarchies are the relationships between executives, senior leaders, line managers, team leaders, and every individual in the organization. These relationships are critical for conveying the organizational vision, communicating the strategy for achieving it, and providing performance feedback.

Unofficial hierarchies exist in every organization, and the most successful ones recognize this and foster these relationships in a positive way. These are the day-to-day working relationships that allow individuals to learn from others’ expertise, make quick decisions, and operate productively. Because these unofficial hierarchies can play a significant role in performance, it’s important to empower people to build these relationships.

Clear Communication About Structure

Having a clear structure allows organizations to work more effectively toward a common goal. Every organization’s structure is different. Even two companies with the same official structure will have unofficial hierarchies that make each of them unique. The structure must be clearly defined and communicated to everyone in the organization, regardless of the parameters.

Without a clear structure, employees don’t know who to go to for approvals or where they should seek advice. This leads to confusion and potentially a diversion from the vision. It’s also important to remember that structures evolve over time, so continue to communicate as roles change.

Strategic Alignment

When deciding who reports to whom, don’t rely on company history or management theory. Always bring it back to the overall strategy of the organization and ask whether the structure supports it. This approach could result in the formation of new departments, restructuring of teams, changes in reporting relationships, or other decisions that might rock the boat. Don’t be afraid to make a change if your current structure is not supporting organizational goals—remember that this is a critical component of success. As the strategy evolves over time, check to make sure that the structure still supports it. If not, determine what changes need to be made to help you reach your goals.

Authority

Structure without authority does not fully allow individuals to execute strategies. Individuals must know what degree of authority they have and in what areas. However, providing the right amount of authority can be a challenge. Too much can be unwieldy and result in poor decisions; too little can impede progress.

Decide how much authority each role should have based on its goals and objectives and alignment with roles at higher levels. Ensure that the individuals in those roles have the right competencies to handle the level of authority they have, and provide the necessary training to fill in any gaps. It is also important to recognize when individuals are ready to take on more authority so you can maximize your talent pool. Don’t assume that the individuals at higher levels need to take on more and more authority. On the contrary, the more they can release to the rising leaders in the organization, the more time and bandwidth they will have to focus on strategy and the larger organizational vision.

2. Talent: Skilled Individuals in the Right Roles

The perfect structure won’t get you far if you don’t have talented people in each role. It’s also critical that people are in the right roles that allow them to perform at their highest level.

Understanding Talent

The skills and knowledge that each employee brings to the table make up the talent component of organizational success. Although talent can be innate, it can also be taught, shaped, enhanced, and developed. Because it can be improved over time, there is a certain amount of potential talent in any organization that should be accounted for in addition to the current stock of talent. It’s this potential talent that contributes to the longevity of an organization and provides a competitive advantage.

Talent Development

The only way to tap into this potential is to invest in it through training and development programs that enable individuals to continually learn and grow. This investment should extend to leadership training to ensure that executives and managers have the skills and knowledge to effectively harness the talent that is being developed. As individuals move through the organizational hierarchy, it’s critical that they learn the necessary skills for performing their roles; structure needs talent to maintain its integrity. Every organization has a certain amount of current potential talent available. It’s what you do with it that determines how successful the company will be.

Although it’s important to zoom out and look at the big picture of having the right people in the right roles, the only way to ensure that people are ready to step into those roles is to focus on individual talent. For each individual, look at their strengths and identify the areas that most need to be developed. These might be functional, interpersonal, or leadership skills. Set standards for each of these areas and assess how each individual performs relative to those standards. This helps you identify the competency gaps that need to be filled. Create individual development plans with goals and milestones to help individuals get to the next level. When they have done this, start over with new assessments and create a new plan that addresses the next set of goals.

3. Behavior: Effective Interactions Between Individuals, Teams, and Leaders

Having a solid structure in place with the right people in the right roles is still not enough to consistently achieve organizational success. The final piece of the puzzle is behavior. How those people interact with each other and perform in their individual roles will inform how the organization performs overall.

Even with the most talented individuals in the right roles, an organization will not reach its full potential if the behaviors of individuals do not promote success. Some of the success factors that heavily rely on individual behaviors include an organization’s ability to innovate, interactions between teams, and continuously improving processes. Some of the behaviors that promote or discourage success include the way employees interact with each other and leaders, the way leaders respond to employees, and the manner in which colleagues from different teams communicate.

Cultivating and Changing Behaviors

The goal is to have individual and team behaviors in alignment with the company culture and the vision of the organization. Every individual in the organization must understand the behaviors that are expected of them, and in many cases, training must be provided to teach new behaviors. Leaders must also model and coach the desired behaviors. Without these examples, it’s unrealistic to expect individual employees to make a change.

Finding the Right Balance

Organizational culture can range from one in which everybody is fully empowered to make decisions to one in which the leaders make all of the decisions. Where an organization falls on this spectrum informs the way people behave. Regardless of where your company is on the spectrum, make sure individuals have the necessary tools to operate in that environment. For example, in an empowered culture, employees must have the necessary skill set to consider and understand the consequences of their actions. The bottom line is, when an organization expects certain behaviors, it must provide the training necessary to enable individuals to meet those expectations.

Conclusion

The three components of organizational success—structure, talent, and behavior—cannot stand alone and must be in balance with each other. Take a holistic view when focusing on any one of these elements to ensure one area does not become disproportionately stronger than the others. Implement a training and development program to support each of these three critical elements to harness the full potential of every individual in the organization. Do this consistently over time, and you have the formula for organizational success.

Contents

• Teamwork and Collaboration
• Ethics and Integrity
• Adaptability
• Innovation and Continuous Learning
• Communication
• Emotional Intelligence
• Leadership

Introduction

Today’s business challenges compel organizations to identify new, more creative ways to enhance shareholder value and the customer experience. As a member of the C-suite, you bear considerable responsibility for building a productive workforce and high-performance culture. Moreover, you want that accountability to go beyond the C-suite and filter through the rest of the organization. In the PWC 2017 CEO Survey on Global Talent, 77 percent of CEOs expressed concern about the availability of core competencies such as creativity and innovation among their workforces. You don’t have to be among them. A focus on the development of seven core competencies can ensure you are building a workforce that possesses the skills you need for short- and long-term success.

1. Teamwork and Collaboration

You probably already recognize that collaboration among employees yields high idea generation and more efficient problem-solving. Tools such as Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud technology provide more seamless ways for employees to collaborate and leverage each other’s strengths. Other solutions that will drive productive teamwork throughout your organization and go beyond technology include training initiatives that help you identify and duplicate the qualities of your existing high-performance teams. Furthermore, you can support employee teamwork and collaboration by building a culture that not only places value on effective teamwork, but also trains employees to be better problem-solvers and communicators within a team environment.

2. Ethics and Integrity

A recent study of ethical trends among CEOs noted increased public scrutiny of C-suite executives and their ethical (or not) behavior. You want your employees and your customers to know that you are committed to doing the right thing, whether it’s in how you approach new business opportunities or how you treat employees. Therefore, ethics and integrity should be woven into your culture and reinforced with coaching and training that helps every individual understand your commitment to ethical behavior.

3.  Adaptability

In today’s ever-changing business landscape, individuals who can shift their behaviors and mindset to align with changes in work culture and environment are more valuable than ever. As your organization grows, your systems and processes will advance in complexity as well. You need your workforce to not only adapt to those changes but in some cases lead the change. As new technologies such as big data, AI, and robotics continue to change the way people work and interact, your workforce will benefit from tailored employee development experiences that will strengthen their change management capabilities and provide the tools needed to adapt to shifts in their work environment.

4. Innovation and Continuous Learning

Organizational growth is the outcome of innovation and a commitment to doing things faster, more efficiently, and with greater value to the customer. When a business challenge requires an innovative solution, you expect employees to consider new processes or technology and be willing to step into the unfamiliar. But can innovation and creative thinking be taught? The answer is yes—with the right tools and environment, you can transform your workforce into a powerful hub for innovation.

5. Communication

The perennial employee development challenge is how to help managers and employees communicate better, with greater clarity, honesty, and effectiveness. Individuals can become better performers if they know how to actively listen to understand colleagues and customers better. Also, people managers need to develop strong communication skills in order to convey performance expectations and solicit and deliver feedback effectively. As a leadership team, you can make communication skills training a key component of your employee development efforts.

6. Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 co-author Travis Bradberry found that 90 percent of high performers exhibit high emotional intelligence. You may have seen within your own workforce how individuals with a high EQ (emotional quotient) are able to overcome difficult personalities, and seem to effortlessly guide the behavior of others without ruffling feathers or aggravating egos. These are the types of behaviors that employees can learn to emulate as they engage in activities that challenge them to practice empathy and patience with coworkers.

7. Leadership

You are likely already aware that perhaps the single most important employee development area that supports organizational capability is effective leadership. Strong leaders empower others to be effective collaborators, communicators, and decision-makers, which will, in turn, provide you with a competitive advantage in times of growth and change. When you partner with HR and a trusted leadership development partner, you can provide leadership development experiences and training that will help to build strong leaders at every level of the organization.

Use Experiential Learning to Address Key Areas of Employee Development

These seven employee development areas can be targeted through a practical competency framework, and aligned with an experiential training program that will help individuals learn by doing. Strong leaders aren’t created by accident but through relevant experiences delivered in a context that encourages learning and further development. With experiential training, your employees engage in employee development that drives lasting behavior change and sets the organization on a course for success and further growth.

What is critical thinking? Critical thinking is a process of objective evaluation of facts and the consideration of possible solutions to problems. According to the Foundation for Critical Thinking, the concept dates back to early methods of questioning to achieve knowledge practiced by the Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. Today, organizations value critical thinking as a means to greater innovation and improved problem-solving. In fact, the skill is deemed so important that a survey of leading chief human resource officers conducted by the World Economic Forum found that critical thinking will be the second most important skill in the workplace by 2020, second only to complex problem-solving skills.

Critical thinking is important because it helps individuals and teams more effectively diagnose problems and identify possible solutions that aren’t entirely obvious at first. In addition, critical thinking can help resolve conflicts in the workplace. When individuals consider a range of possible approaches to solving a problem rather than relying on bias or snap judgments, they are more likely to arrive at a better solution.

Ways to Promote Critical Thinking in the Workplace

Some ways you can promote critical thinking in the workplace involve making changes in your workplace culture; others involve training. Here are five ways to encourage critical thinking in your organization.

1. Hire and Promote Critical Thinkers

An important first step to building organizational strength in critical thinking is to hire individuals who are already strong in that area. Behavioral interviewing is an effective way to gauge a candidate’s strengths in critical evaluation and analysis. In addition, when you make critical thinking a desired competency for leadership and promotion, you begin to build a pipeline of talented critical thinkers.

2. Build a Culture of Learning

It’s critical to create an environment where the behaviors related to critical thinking are a natural part of your company culture. Some of the ways you can build and support  a culture that stimulates critical, objective analysis include:

• Incorporating “lessons learned” discussions after the conclusion of important projects, during which employees have the opportunity to look back on areas where more critical thinking might have been helpful in improving a project’s outcome
• Creating an environment where tough questions are welcomed and employees are encouraged to talk through alternatives openly
• Developing a routine or protocol for decision-making that encourages critical-thinking behaviors such as exploring possible solutions to a problem, exploring bias, and considering the consequences of different proposed solutions

3. Avoid Jumping to Conclusions

Another way to promote critical thinking in the workplace is to avoid jumping to conclusions. Instead, approach a problem by first developing a common understanding of the challenges it presents. According to a recent helpful article, these are a few ways to accomplish this:

• Ask questions about the origin of a problem and how it evolved
• Define the desired outcome before settling on a solution to the problem
• Avoid overthinking possible solutions, which can slow down the problem-solving process and undermine disciplined thinking

4. Create Internal Forums

Sometimes the simple act of talking things out can help to spur the critical, objective analysis of problems. When individuals have a forum for addressing and discussing one big problem or a series of related problems, they generate new ideas, share pros and cons of certain solutions, and take advantage of opportunities to collaborate with coworkers on creative solutions to workplace problems.

5. Teach and Train

Leadership development and teamwork-skills training can help build employees’ critical thinking strengths by encouraging a mind-set and skill-set change. As individuals learn new behaviors, they begin to see broader problems and solutions that exist beyond their individual roles and consider the larger picture when looking at a problem.

Experiential learning  works particularly well in promoting critical thinking because learning by doing encourages a critical skill set. The immersive nature of an experiential approach keeps employees fully engaged so that they continually use their critical-thinking and problem-solving skills.

Build Critical Thinking in the Whole Organization

Critical thinking is more than a desirable soft skill; it’s a valuable competency that is the basis for innovation and problem-solving. When properly cultivated in the workplace, critical thinking can help individuals and teams overcome challenges and meet business goals. Although there’s no magic bullet that will increase critical thinking in the workplace, a variety of activities in combination can effectively promote it. When you build a culture that promotes and values critical thinking, your organization as a whole will see greater results and outcomes.

Meetings are an important way to keep your team in sync and your initiatives running smoothly. Whether you need to share information, gather feedback, or make decisions, there are a plethora of positive effects of having weekly staff meetings.

So, what makes a meeting effective? According to a leadership lesson presented by the Association of American Medical Colleges, “Effective meetings allow for open conversation that draws upon each members’ knowledge, skills, and perspectives to solve problems and to support one another in achieving the collective goals.” This may seem like a simple definition, but it takes skill to consistently run meetings that fit that description. The better your leaders are at running effective meetings, the more you will witness the following four benefits within your organization.

1. Increased Engagement and Collaboration

When led well, meetings offer each person the opportunity to participate and provide input. To engage each individual, effective facilitators focus on asking questions and guiding the conversation so that everyone understands that their perspectives and ideas are valued. These discussions can even spark collaborative brainstorming sessions that produce new ideas and creative solutions.

Practical Tip

When preparing for a meeting, create a list of questions that will help stimulate discussion. If there are particular people who don’t regularly speak up, ask them to share their input with the group.  

2. Increased Accountability

A good meeting leader is skilled at creating an environment in which everybody feels that their contribution is valued. This helps make participants feel more comfortable taking on assignments and makes it clear that every task has an impact on the project as a whole. Committing to a task in a meeting often has more weight than doing so in a one-on-one situation or via email. When saying “yes” to an assignment in a meeting, individuals feel more accountable to the group and are more motivated to complete their piece of the project. Capturing action items and responsibilities in the meeting also increases personal accountability because the team will be able to review the task assignments in the meeting notes.

Practical Tip

Conclude every meeting by summarizing the list of action items, including who is responsible for them and when the tasks are due. After the meeting, follow up via email or your project management tool to reinforce the commitments that were made.

3. A Shared Sense of Purpose

Clearly stating the purpose of the meeting and providing an agenda in advance ensures that everybody is on the same page about why it is being held and what they need to do to come prepared. A skilled leader then uses the agenda to keep the discussion moving in the direction of the team’s goals. Sharing the agenda and goals with the team provides a shared sense of purpose because everyone understands the importance of the meeting and why they have been included. This shared purpose is motivating both during the meeting and after, when the team disperses to work on their individual action items.

Practical Tip

When inviting people to a meeting, provide an agenda within the invite that clearly defines the meeting objectives. During the meeting, if the conversation starts to wander, circle back to those objectives to keep the meeting on track.

4. Opportunities for Personal Growth

A truly effective meeting creates opportunities for each person to develop important skills. The facilitator is refining their leadership skills by practicing effective communication techniques and motivating the group to be accountable for their commitments. Participants are able to witness the benefits of a well-run meeting and adopt the skills and behaviors modeled by the leader. An effective meeting also enables participants to challenge themselves and try something new. When tasks are being discussed and assigned, participants can volunteer to take on the work that interests them most. Even if they have limited knowledge or experience, they can join a group that will allow them to learn and develop their skills in that area.

Practical Tip

To help individuals learn new skills, pair newer employees up with more experienced team members and give them a challenging task to complete as a team. This enables the less experienced individuals to learn from the expertise of their partners and gain new skills in a supportive and productive way.

Conclusion

While this is not an exhaustive list of all the positive effects of having weekly staff meetings, it does give you a clear indication there are many. In addition to keeping everyone on the same page, well-run meetings also help increase engagement, collaboration, accountability, and personal development. However, not all leaders possess the necessary skill set to run an effective meeting. Fortunately, this can be taught and honed through training and practice. To learn more about planning and running meetings in your organization, download our free guide, A Guide to Running Effective Meetings.

Effective leadership demands interacting with people in a way that motivates and energizes them. This requires communicating in a manner that goes beyond just relaying information. The most successful leaders inspire others, build connections between people, and create alignment throughout the organization.