Drive excitement and ready your team for change.

Today’s business environment is more volatile than in the past and business leaders need to know how to instill positive change within their corporations to thrive now more than ever before. We have found that positive change starts with creating excitement to manage alignment to the new change.  This approach works with all aspects of change within the corporation.  In the following we will narrow the focus to employee programs.

So, you are looking at a plan to introduce a new employee program to better align employees to your corporate culture. These can be new employees just starting, long term employees, department specific employees, new employees through a merger or acquisition, or even retiring employees.

Consider all employees

Regardless of which department or group of employees you would like to effect change, you will need to consider the effect it may have on other employees.  For example, if you are implementing a new 90 day employee onboarding plan, you must consider how this will effect the existing and long term employees.  You may have to expand your 90 day plan with a legacy plan for your long term employees.

Staying on the scenario where you are trying to implement a 90 day plan, perhaps you already have a legacy employee plan in place.  In this case you will have to review your legacy plan to make sure there is a smooth fit with your new 90 day plan.

You can see where this is going.  It doesn’t need to be complicated, but you must be aware of the bigger picture within the corporation to make sure all the employee plans work together and are aligned to the goals you have set. 

Ready the leadership

One key activity with any change plan is to include the leaders and stakeholders in the plan from the beginning.  Clearly communicating the objective and why now is the best time to implement the plan, must be done.

But you can’t stop here.  You must instill some enthusiasm and excitement in your leadership.  This enthusiasm and excitement are needed as it then will trickle down to every employee effected by the new plan.  As well, this energy will help deliver the success you are looking for with the plan.

Okay, communication is easier but you may want to know the “how” to drive enthusiasm and excitement. Storytelling is your answer.

“Research has shown that storytelling has a remarkable ability to connect people and inspire them to take action. When your organization needs to make a big change, stories will help you convey not only why it needs to transform but also what the future will look like in specific, vivid terms.”¹

You will need to create your story from a few data points you have gathered and craft an optimistic path forward.  Using data effectively to connect the past successes to your future path should be part of your effective story telling.

You will also want to validate your leadership team is on board and ready to go.  Clear up any confusion or objections with again the effective use of story with data.  When you have validated, you will want to continue to ramp up the excitement.

There is nothing as effective as a special kick-off event to drive excitement. You will first want to do this with your leadership team.  Wrap this special event with something special for each leadership team member to keep.

Some special branded items which are connected to the plan and this special event. Using a newly created logo or icon which is perfectly aligned to your plan attached to a special item is very effective in creating the excitement and acting as an ongoing reminder of the active plan.

Communicate

Once you have your leadership and stakeholders engaged and excited about the plan you will need to clearly communicate the plan and same story to all the directly involved employees.

As highlighted in the same article as above, “You’ll probably need to communicate far more often than you think you should. In our experience, leaders generally need to double or triple their pace of strategic messaging.”¹

Again, like you did with your management team, you will want to have a special event to kick off the plan with the leadership and employees involved.  Again, clearly integrate the story into the communication. Nail this all home with branded items for all your employees involved.  You want each employee to be enthusiastic about the plan along with the leadership and this reminder of a branded item will assist.

Execute the plan

Every company including your company has the potential to accomplish miraculous things and achieve things well beyond the set goals.  Executing your plan and telling your powerful story often is a key element to executing your plan.

As RBC found, “By telling a powerful story about why RBC exists as an organization and by creating a collective and distributed leadership capability to realize that potential, the leadership team has unleashed the beast from within.”² you could also see miraculous things from your company.

Remember, excitement is a fleeting emotion and needs to be reinvigorated often with different approaches.  Celebrate your milestones with special events which bring employees together and excited again in the execution of the plan.  Include these milestones and events within your plan.

“’You need moments of celebration,’ [Lisa Lai] says. ‘That’s how you create sustained engagement.’”³

With every good celebration you want to also provide all the participants with something memorable to take away from the event. Milestone promotional items with the plan’s logo on it creates excellent pieces to recreate the enthusiasm and excitement for the plan.

Our team is here to help you and your team with execution and help provide many other creative solutions to build your corporate culture and benefit your company.

Please do reach out to our team at Durham Promotional Products for items for your plan and/or other creative solutions to engage and connect with your workforce and customers.  We excel at creating smiles, increasing productivity, and providing overall stronger corporate cultural bonds with our creative solutions.

Ask about our unique 90 Day employee onboarding plan!

Sources:

1.    https://hbr.org/2023/11/storytelling-that-drives-bold-change
2.    https://hbr.org/2015/11/getting-employees-excited-about-a-new-direction
3.    https://hbr.org/2019/12/how-to-motivate-your-team-during-crunch-time