The Key to Long Lasting Organizational Change

The key to long-lasting organizational change is transforming the ingrained attitudes, beliefs, values or mindset of personnel by embracing these four strategies.

·   Solidify management’s commitment to the new objectives, methodology, expectations or roles and behaviors. Change starts at the top of an organization. Leadership has to buy into every aspect of the need to change the status quo. Management must exhibit the desire for change and actively promote follow-though if a transformation is going to last.

·   Communicate to everyone that roles and expectations are changing, behavior has to change, and, likewise, their thinking also must change. To make a substantial change, you have to transform the organizational mindset. Changing a mindset needs to be done at the role level. People need to introspectively evaluate their mindset in light of the role they’ve been working in, as well as the role they are now being asked to move to and function in the transformed organization.

·   Install reinforcement and support systems to bolster changes, such as ongoing refinement of processes, training in new systems, strong leaders who dive in, exemplify and promote the change.

·   Provide training and insights into how personnel can adjust their thinking if they want to succeed in a new role. Not everyone is prepared to change. How can you deal with this? The best way is to encourage de-volunteering. You should communicate the expectations in the new role, the methodology, the requirements and the behavior; provide support training for people who have difficulty adopting these changes; and allow people to make their own decision to move ahead and embrace the changes or not. Ultimately, only they can make change happen for them. Everyone says they’re for change — they just don’t want to be changed.