What we have been getting wrong about leading through change

- In our perpetually evolving world of business, too often, executives and leaders ignore the emotions of change. These emotions that have gone on acknowledged stand in the way of achieving change and transformation goals, and can ultimately stall or defeat change success. What up? I'm Casandra Worthy, founder and CEO of Change Enthusiasm Global. Prior to founding my consulting firm, I spent nearly 15 years leading Fortune 100 organizations within the consumer packaged goods industry through organizational restructures, breakthrough innovation delivery, and multibillion dollar acquisitions. I now work with business professionals all over the world on harnessing the power of emotion to fuel growth through change. Here are the common pitfalls I see most often when leading through change. Number one, we diminish or ignore negative emotions. Often, when leading change in our teams and organizations, we talk of change being challenging, acknowledge that it will be difficult, but then immediately attempt to diminish the negative emotions coloring that difficulty, not only to those in our organization, but to ourselves as well. Role modeling this grit your teeth and bear it mindset is dangerous because it ignores the very real emotion involved with change and subsequently, can lead to employee burnout and disengagement. Number two, we focus too heavily on the change vision and corresponding roles and responsibilities and not enough on employee wellbeing and fulfillment. Too often in the face of change, we view our workforce as a body of resources on the ready to be deployed against deliverables, as opposed to individuals within a complex slice of humanity. When ignored, this complexity manifest into hurdles that stall progress through the change journey. Number three, we don't fully embrace the fact that everyone wears change differently. Here's the simple fact, not everyone is going to be immediately ready to jump on board and excitedly execute change. For any major change, a high complexity of emotion will churn across the organization, both negative and positive. When we assume a one-size-fits-all approach to change, we fail to empower our people to contribute and thrive in their own unique way. This fact must be embraced by allowing every individual in your organization the room to process and execute those deliverables with a bit of grace. Number four, we don't provide genuine productive outlets for employees to express and emote throughout the change life cycle. This includes, as best as possible, early engagement prior to beginning any change execution. When we, as leaders, do not create productive conduits for emotional energy to flow, we enable the potential for counterproductive energy to continue churning within the organization through the rumor mills or the street committees, eventually stalling or thwarting change success. By slipping into any of these pitfalls, you could be costing your business millions of dollars in lost productivity and put successful change adoption at risk. Join me in this course to learn, not only how to sidestep these pitfalls, but also how to acknowledge and understand your own emotional energies and the emotional landscape of your organization to successfully and effectively lead through a major change, disruption, and transformation.