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June 1, 2018

Rise Above the Pain of Change! Part 2

Rise Above the Pain of Change! Part 2

In Part 1 we covered the first 2 essentials to rise above the pain of change and make it a positive process; trust in leadership and a clear and consistent direction!

The third essential is for leadership to work with the team to develop a well-structured plan. If you want the team to embrace a change ask for their suggestions and feedback on how to implement the change. If you want the team to have ownership give them authorship as well. A well-structured plan is well thought out and clearly defined. I teach teams the R.I.S.E. Implementation Process to help them work together to create a well-structured plan. R.I.S.E. is an acronym for Review, Implement, Sustain and Evaluate.

  • Review
    • What is it we are currently doing
    •  What is working and what is not
    • Keep what is let go of what is not
    • WIIFTT – What’s in it for the team if we make the chang
    • It is important for the value/benefits to rate an 8 or above on scale of 1 to 10 or it is difficult to sustain
  • Implement
    • What are we going to change
    • Who is going to do it
    • Who are we going to do it for
    • When are we going to do it – including time, sequence and flow
    • Where are we going do it – very specific location
    • Why are we going to do it
      • WIIFTT if we make the change – there must always be something in it for the team for the team to sustain the change
    • How are we going do it
      • Practice verbal skills
      • Practice role playing – yes I know it’s weird but it’s effective
      • Practice the entire physical walk through – never test it out for the first time on a patient
      • Create standard operating procedure
      • Schedule the roll out date
  • Sustain
    • In order to sustain it is important for the new change to become a habit
      • It takes a range of 17 to 257 days to form a habit depending on the difficulty with the average being 66 days
    • Give any new change at least 60 days to get comfortable before considering any changes
    • Be precise and consistent to form a habit much sooner
      • Same sequence and steps for every team member every time
    • Support the change positively in words, actions and attitude
  • Evaluate
    • Is the process still working effectively
    • If not what is the value and benefits in a change
    • Any change takes ongoing tweaking

The fourth essential is to schedule appropriate and adequate training and practice time. I have found that the most positive and successful changes happen when the team has time to train and practice.

Team meetings are the perfect opportunity for training and practice time. Utilize your team meetings to:

  • Review and update systems and protocols
  • Implement new ideas
  • Monitor process of yearly goals
  • Practice, practice, practice
    • Verbal skills, role playing and physical walk through

Team meetings are most effective when you:

  • Schedule often enough
  • Schedule time enough
  • Schedule when most can attend
  • Get feedback from the entire team
    • Encourage solution focused suggestions on how to overcome potential obstacles

The fifth essential is to be realistic with the workload. It will be very difficult to get the team excited about embracing something new if they are already swamped and consistently running behind. It is important to evaluate whether there is enough time, money and people to successfully implement the change. Don’t firehose your employees with changes. Implement only one or two new things at a time. Even the most committed employees will become resistant to change if they are consistently overwhelmed.

Cultivating a culture with these 5 essentials will help you rise above the pain of change and make it a positive process!

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