Strategy? Change? In such volatile times!

Leadership Development / Strategic Mindset and Change

Strategy and change have always been two sides of the same coin.

But until now, strategy development has meant being able to align strategy to reasonably stable parameters. The future could be described and pursued with sufficient plausibility. But today? Hasn’t strategy as a leadership task become obsolete? Hasn’t quickly responding to changing market conditions replaced the development of strategy of the past?

The answer: yes and no. If your focus is only on the market/your customers, you lose sight of the unique contribution made by your personal area of responsibility. Continuing this in the future will deliver orientation. And has enormous motivational potential.

So, the same question as before: What unique contribution will we make to the future we want to see?

4-P Method

for change communication
Purpose

Why are we doing this? What is the background to all of this? What will happen if we do nothing?

Picture

What will be in place when everything is as it should be? What will it look like when it’s finished?

Plan

How do we get there? What are the next steps?

Part to Play

Who can / should / will do what?

The strategy is there, the rest is just doing it…!

Sound familiar to you? The energizing effect of drawing up strategies and then – when such a body of work materializes – the memory that slowly returns of how tiring it will be to now have to “get cargo and crew on board.” From now on it is a question of structures, processes and, ultimately, human behavior. For that, you need in-depth knowledge and communication skills.

  • 4-P Communication
  • Change Curve
  • Leaving behind the valley of tears
  • Stakeholder management
  • Forming alliances
  • First movers / early adopters and change in attitudes

Change - what, again?

From an evolutionary theory perspective, people find change very difficult. Ultimately, each process of adaptation to changed conditions costs energy. You need to expend energy to find a new waterhole when the old one has run dry. Even getting used to a new office or working from home costs energy. The same is true of getting up to speed with new processes and adapting to new structures. And, because this all costs energy, we weigh things up. Instinctively, we tend to be very sparing with our energy. The “Formula for Change” learly shows when and under what conditions people are prepared to change their mindset or their behavior:

Consider this formula when planning and implementing a change process. Assess the resistance and consider what weighting can and must be given to suffering, vision and the likelihood of success! And be sure of one thing: If one of the variables on the right-hand side tends towards zero, no change will occur.