Four principles leaders can use to guide employees through disconcerting change….

Bob Sutton posts on four principles that leaders can use to guide a "leader who [is]  implementing any change that employees will find disconcerting". The four key principles are prediction, understanding, control, and compassion and are described as follows:

1. Prediction: Give people as much information as you can about what will happen — to them as individuals, to their workgroups, and to the organization as a whole — and when it will happen. This makes the layoff real for people and helps them prepare for the future. 
2. Understanding: Explain why you believe the change is necessary. Human beings have consistently negative reactions to unexplained events. This effect is so strong that it is better to give an explanation that people dislike than no explanation at all — so long as the explanation is credible.
3. Control: Giving people influence over what will happen is often impossible, but giving them influence over how it happens and when it happens is often possible.
4. Compassion: Senior executives should express human compassion, and when appropriate, sorrow, for the consequences of their business decisions.

These principles are key to sustaining employee motivation an loyalty during and after the difficult times…

Technorati Tags: Change, Principles, Morale, Transformation

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Tagged as: Change