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Change Happens & We Need To Find Ways To Deal With It…
As an IT Leader, one of your main jobs is to lead your team though changes. However, here is where you may run into a problem. Considering how many layoffs, cut backs, and canceled projects most IT teams have had to work though, the last thing that your team really wants is more change. What’s an IT Leader to do?
First Things First
If you want to have any hope of being able to convince your team to rally behind a significant change that you are in charge of, then you’re going to have to do some work. The first thing that you are going to have to deal with has to do with what has gone on in the past.
In order to make things happen now, you’re going to have to find ways to help your team let go of the past and find ways to move forward. You want them to be able to move forward as quickly as possible. Note that you need them to do both of these on two different levels: an emotional level as well as a workplace level.
How To Let Go Of The Past
If you want to have any hope of helping your team to let go of the past, then you are going to have to let them get all of those feelings that they have inside out. Sorry technology lover – this is messy, human relations (can you say “management”) sort of stuff.
The key word here is “empathy”. Note that I didn’t say “sympathy”. The difference is a bit subtle, but it’s critical. An IT Leader who is sympathetic feels bad because you are felling bad. An IT Leader who is empathetic feels sad because of the thing that is making you feel sad. This latter emotion is a much, much more powerful way to connect with your team.
What you are going to have to do is to acknowledge the feelings that the people on your team are having. Once you’ve done that, then you can start to use this understanding to go about building a team environment based on cooperation and trust.
Next Things Next
Once you’ve got the IT team to let go of the past, it’s time for the next step. This is where you get them to buy-in and support the new change that you are trying to implement.
In order to get everyone to commit to what needs to be done, you are going to have to be straight with them. This is not the time to be sugar-coating what you are telling your team. If it’s going to be hard to implement the change that you want to do, now is the time to tell everyone that.
Practical Ways To Get Everyone Onboard
One of the key ways to get support from your team is to make sure that as the leader you are providing a clear vision of where you want to go. This vision has to have enough detail associated with it so that your team can fully understand where you want to go and how you plan on getting there.
Additionally, IT Leaders can’t make their team implement a change. Rather you are going to have to allow them to do it themselves. To make this easier for them to do, a good idea is to let the team create their own procedures for rolling out the needed changes.
What All Of This Means For You
Change is never easy. For some reason, in the world of IT change is not only hard to do, but due to past failures most of your team often resists any attempt to implement a change.
IT Leaders need to realize that they need to take an active role in implementing IT changes. They need to work with their team and help them to let go of the past and all of the baggage that goes with it. Next, they need to discover how to get the team to buy-in and support the new change.
Implementing IT changes is something that will happen multiple times during your management. Taking the time to do it correctly will help not only your IT team to become more valuable to the rest of the company, but will also end up making you more valuable at the same time.
- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Management Skills™
Question For You: How active of a role in implementing a big change in the IT department do you think that you should play as opposed to your team?
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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time
How many times do you have to tell your team: it’s time to start innovating again? The global recession is over, if your part of the IT department is going to start to grow and be successful, then your team is going to have to be out in front and leading the charge. Since budgets are still constrained, it’s going to take a great deal of innovation to find ways to do more with what you currently have. Why isn’t anyone doing this?
