Making Change Happen
My experience of being in a strategic leadership position, is that as a team, you have an idea which needs to be implemented but then gets stuck in roll out and fails to embed. The recent tragic Ockenden review, follows many others, which all show that there is a failure to change practice despite an overwhelming reason to do things differently.
I feel that rather than speeding through our action plan, we need to step back and empower others to find their own path to creating solutions.
As projects grows in complexity and size, there will need to be more oversight but by creating insight in our teams, we will enable achievement of real change.
Project Management, Leadership and Followship
Even with improved project success rates and more technologically advanced tools and techniques to help improve team productivity, organisations today still face many complex challenges in setting and achieving their strategic goals.
Someone said that management is all about creating stability and embedding systems and leadership is about change so when achieving success in your projects and ideas, these elements need to be combined: change management to embrace the new ideas alongside embedding of the new ways of doing things.
We rarely however remember the critical elements of inclusion and followship.
It is important that the role of followers is considered as a positive asset alongside the leaders and the other roles which will be critical for success. This should be inclusive and representative for the whole team and the community they serve.
Learning how to become a better leader requires embracing our inner follower by showing trust and removing fear from our decision making to ensure that we can have a passionate and constructive debate of ideas.
Positive Psychology, Psychological Safety and Insight
Positive Psychology explores the science behind positive emotions since they link with the benefits of improved health, well-being, longevity, and a greater quality of life. On the flip side anger, anxiety, depression, and worry are related to poor health outcomes, often derived from systemic oppression and harsh, negative environments.
Improving the teams ‘productivity’ is a very difficult task to achieve. Teams are made up of human beings—people often with diverse personal culture, different skills, strengths, weaknesses, and different personalities so creating safe spaces to discuss and plan can be a true skill. Participating in this team, both as a leader and a follower requires an open mind, the ability to listen and being open to challenge.
Providing a safe space where each individual can thrive creates a happier team who can be more creative and ensures a supportive environment which enables insight.
Happiness can be increased by ‘noticing the positives in our every day experiences, recognising the roadblocks and identifying ways to overcome them. Once the first steps are taken, it becomes much easier to provoke change especially where failure is celebrated as part of the pathway of success and we all contribute to the solution enabling true insight to be found.
Where we create fear, which is often where the culture is grounded in criticism; this is where we get stuck – fearing the outcomes of change which prevents us from fully participating in the solutions.
When your team feel comfortable asking for help, sharing suggestions informally, or challenging the status quo without fear of negative social consequences, we are more likely to innovate quickly, unlock the benefits of diversity, and adapt well to change.
Leaders can build psychological safety by creating the right climate, mindsets, and behaviours within their teams. People should be able to be honest, authentic and trust created through a consistent, predictable and safe space for challenge and followership.
By empowering your team to be the best they can be and enabling them the freedom to define their own journey to a shared vision, we can create new ways of working and embed the insight from all.
