How To Transform An Organisation

When talking about organisational change, I make one point clear:
If you don’t involve your employees, at every stage, then you’re playing with fire.
Change is hard and painful enough without it feeling like it’s imposed on you.
You can’t – or at least, it’s unwise – to order change from on high. Let your employees lead themselves a little. Get them involved from the planning to the implementation to the assessment.
But, okay, yes.
Gotta involve the employees, got it.
Here’s an obvious question, though…
Who do you involve?
I mean, if your organisation is 20 people, that’s easy. But if it’s 200? Or 200,000? Then what?
Obviously, you don’t want to exclude anyone. That’s asking for trouble. But equally obviously, you can’t hear from everyone.
What do you do?
One approach is to have an electronic suggestion box. Let people email in, anonymously or otherwise, their ideas.
While a great idea, that’s not sufficient. Doing that alone sends a worse message than not asking for input at all.
No, involvement has to include face-to-face (or at least video conferencing) for it to be genuine.
So who do you gather for these conferences, brown bag sessions, exchanges, pow wows and input acquisition meetings?
Here’s a short, but by no means complete, list.
Someone (or a few someones) who are new to the organisation… and the workforce as a whole.
Folk who are new to the organisation but have experience elsewhere.
Some old hands who have been around for years, even decades.
A few subject matter experts from different corners of the organisation.
Your best managers and leaders.
Anyone who is keen, passionate and vocal about change. You know these people – they’re the ones constantly brainstorming and discussing new ideas, sharing books on leadership and asking aloud, “how can we do better?”
One or two cynics who think you’re doomed no matter what.
People who are intimately familiar with your customers. Maybe even invite your customers along – they have ideas on how you can help them.
You can’t forget your strategic leaders, of course.
And those valuable employees who have worked in virtually every team you have.
Put them all into a room together (or several rooms – it could get unwieldy) and see what happens.
With the right questions and the chance to hear everyone, you’ll get answers that are simply sublime.
This is what diversity looks like – especially because it reflects the diversity of your organisation. You don’t need to worry about different cultures, genders and backgrounds – get the rest of this right and you’ll have quite the melting pot on your hands.

The best way to enhance your organisation is with the ultimate advantage: trust.
But how do you measure something like that, let alone improve it?
Especially if your workforce is stretched thin, cynical and burned out on change?
There are simple, effective and proven strategies you can begin implementing today. I know you can unlock the creativity, productivity and joy of your employees.
Learn how today with my free white paper and all the resources you need to launch your own trust-based change initiative:
https://battenandking.com/advantage

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