Very, very few employees in the history of human work have faced corporate change of the sort that we’ve seen during the past two years. Even now, companies continue to face a constant barrage of change as they attempt to adapt to a business landscape that continues to move beneath their feet. 

You would think that as change has become a part of their daily lives, employees would learn to accept it — or maybe even embrace it. But that’s not usually the case, as evidenced by the ongoing negotiations between employers and employees worldwide over returning to the office, which is demonstrating that some employees are actually very resistant to change.

But “resistance to change” creates a self-perpetuating cycle that leads to frustration, defensiveness, and organizational paralysis.

How Should Leaders Respond When They Feel Resistance to Change?

It happens all the time. With the best interests of the company and employees at heart, a leader obsesses over a problem, doing the grunt work necessary to find a workable solution — only to find that the solution is received with precisely zero enthusiasm, causing the leader to frustratedly ask, “I’m trying to help! Why are they fighting so hard against this change!”

Asking that question is an indication that you’re working with a flawed mindset. The question is itself a label, based on your reaction to the event. And it’s the belief that people are resistant to change that’s the real problem.

People actually don’t resist change. We know this because people are changing voluntarily all the time. Once we understand that the people we work with aren’t resisting change in general, it becomes much easier to ask pointed questions about what the specific objections to this change might be, and how the team can move forward productively.

Here are the three questions to ask when change gets tough.

1. First, pause and ask, “Why do I believe they are resistant to change?” The specific actions that we tend to notice include things like negative knee-jerk reactions, predictions that it won’t work, or failure to follow through after being trained for change. But each of these things are perfectly normal, human workplace behaviors. Interpreting these as a sign of resistance to change may say just as much about your mindset as your team’s. And labeling these behaviors as change resistance can set up the toxic cycle of defensiveness that makes successful change impossible.
2. Once you pause, ask the next question, “Where are these reactions coming from? Why are they reacting this way?” Knee-jerk cynicism may simply be a personality trait. A prediction that the change won’t be as effective as predicted may be an honest attempt to preemptively address an issue the employee sees coming down the line. The crucial behavior for the leader is to work from the assumption that the team wants to succeed as badly as you do, and their behaviors tell you something important about what they’re thinking.
3. Finally, pause a third time and ask, “Do I know something my team doesn’t know, or do they know something I don’t know — but need to?” The first question helps you avoid the mistake of forgetting that your team doesn’t actually have access to the inside of your head, and it’s entirely possible that if they knew everything you knew about the situation, they’d be on board with the change. So tell them! 

Likewise, it’s possible that if you knew everything your team knows, you might have reached a very different decision. After all, you hired them to know things you don’t know and do things you can’t do. The proactive solution to this, of course, is to make sure that employees are consulted about major changes before the day they’re announced. But if you find yourself meeting resistance, it’s wise to pump the brakes and ask yourself if what’s actually happening is that team members with specific and valuable domain knowledge are seeing something you’re not.

By this time next year, we’ll have a pretty good idea of the way many companies handled the return to the office, what approach they used with their employees, and how successfully — or disastrously— it all went. In the meantime, Dr. Dawn-Marie Turner will continue her work helping organizations view change as an asset, rather than a liability.

Ever try riding a unicycle?  I had to agree with most of my friends who call it “terror on a stick,” but I wanted to teach my grandkids that it was important to try new things even when you are afraid. 

My friends thought this sixty-year-old had lost his mind and, in truth, after my first fall, I thought they might be right. Admittedly, the learning curve for riding a unicycle is steep. It consisted of several major falls, picking myself up, dusting myself off, and trying again. After those failures — that resulted in many sore muscles — my grandkids saw me successfully riding the unicycle. In the process, they learned some important life lessons, and I was reminded of several that I’ve used in business and life.

1.    Some of life’s lessons are painful, but keep trying.
2.      Determination helps you overcome your fears.
3.      You won’t go very far without balance in your life.
4.      Breathe naturally – even when you are scared.
5.      Talk is cheap – action pays the bills.
6.      Don’t be concerned about what others are thinking.
7.      Goals help you push through the pain.
8.      You’re as old as you think you are.
9.      To reach your goals – you must be willing to stand out in a crowd.
10.     It’s important to get out of your comfort zone.

Fear can hold us back from reaching our full potential. However, it can also be an excellent motivator and teacher.

Good Luck! You are a WINNER!

At the core of every successful business are reliable products or services and an effective team of employees. Unfortunately, the latter is where many business owners and executive leadership struggle.

Without exceptional employees, your business won’t operate smoothly. It will always be halting and grinding, stumbling and starting as you pursue new talent, onboard them, and train them, only to lose them and start all over again.

In short, it’s an exhausting process that drains resources and keeps businesses in a perpetual downturn.

Some businesses and organizations may consider high turnover rates or problems maintaining top talent as an unavoidable aspect of “normal” business. They take it on the chin as part of the job. But it doesn’t need to be that way.

High turnover rates usually indicate deeper problems within the business—red flags that there are core issues driving employees to leave at a high rate. Rather than relying on new talent recruitment to somehow fix this problem, your goal should be to create an environment that encourages employees to stay for as long as it’s practical for them and you, the employer.

You can solve these talent strategy issues—and more—through leadership coaching that takes a talent-centric approach. You won’t have to spin your wheels regularly looking for recruits. Instead, you can focus on your people and grow your business.

Defining the Problem: Why Employees Leave

To resolve high employee turnover, you need to determine why you have the problem in the first place. Getting to the root of the issue can fix it more efficiently than putting on a Band-Aid.

One of the main reasons employees leave is because company leadership isn’t aligned with one another. When leaders don’t have a firm grasp on the company’s culture, high employee turnover becomes inevitable. Everyone in a leadership role must be on the same page to promote continuity. A lack of leadership alignment, conflicting expectations, and poor messaging only push employees to leave.

Another reason employees leave is that their skills are a poor match. An effective interview process aims to weed out candidates whose skills don’t align with the job requirements and company strategy. However, an interviewer won’t catch a candidate’s mismatched skill set unless there is a robust competency discovery process.

It’s not easy to discover how and why one candidate is less qualified than another, especially if interviewers are unsure of what makes a good fit for the business. To make matters worse, sometimes candidates aren’t upfront about their skills⁠—or lack thereof⁠—and that causes problems. These uncertain candidates can become uncertain employees.

Remember that your employees are people with emotions who will respond emotionally to the surrounding environment. If your culture promotes a positive, healthy workspace, your employees will be more likely to stick around. This may require higher levels of executive coaching to ensure that corporate leadership exudes respect, openness, gratitude, value, and alignment.

Finding the Solution: Leadership Alignment

When your leadership is aligned, your employees will be, too. It’s one thing when employees perform the work they’re hired for and do it well, but it’s entirely different when they do their jobs with a sense of purpose and mission. Employees who have adopted the company’s mission will be driven by something more than just a paycheck.

By aligning your employees with the leadership’s vision, mission, goals, and strategy, your business and entire work environment will reap the benefits. Leadership alignment will:

1. Solidify the Company Vision and Mission

Sometimes a business may not be clear on what its vision is. Maybe the vision is vague or undefined. By emphasizing alignment, leaders will be forced to reassess the company’s vision and strategy. Reviewing the business’s goals will strengthen and solidify them. Vague or undefined areas will be found and cleared up promptly.

2. Strengthen and Redefine Your Culture

Focusing on leadership alignment can help you create a culture of feedback. An open culture is vital for ensuring your employees are content and business operations keep humming along smoothly. Employees need to know their concerns and criticisms are valid. Leadership can advocate for this by allowing an open environment that solicits feedback.

Your employees are humans with real emotions who will thrive when they can healthily express those emotions. Realizing this, and using it as a foundational strategy, will also help you attract and retain new employees who contribute positively to your workforce.

3. Help Build a Cohesive Team

Alignment within your leadership will bring everyone onto the same page. As employees embrace the leadership vision and business strategy, they’ll develop shared goals and work toward the same ideals. Your leadership vision will be solidified as employees get on board and make it their own. They’ll carry the company mission forward as part of their own mission.

4. Resolve the Core Problem of High Employee Turnover

Leadership alignment is the answer to high turnover rates. With alignment, you can dial down your talent recruitment strategy and reduce your spending on recruiting. By resolving the core problems of why employees leave, you’re fostering more reasons for employees to stay.

Implementing the Strategy

How do you implement a talent strategy that makes leadership alignment front and center? Some businesses start with leadership development and executive coaching. While this is helpful, it’s not the end game. A business needs both leadership development and a talent-centric strategy. However, it must always start at the top with leadership alignment. A strategy formulated at the top level, where the executives are, will be the most successful.

“When I look back on my life nowadays, which I sometimes do, what strikes me most forcibly about it is that what seemed at the time most significant and seductive seems now most futile and absurd. For instance, success in all of its various guises; being known and being praised; ostensible pleasures, like acquiring money or seducing women, or traveling, going to and fro in the world and up and down in it like Satan, explaining and experiencing whatever Vanity Fair has to offer. In retrospect, all these exercises in self-gratification seem pure fantasy, what Pascal called “licking the earth.” — Stephen Covey

There are different ways of being a CEO.

‘Licking the earth’ is one of them: a relentless, depleting pursuit of avoiding risk, getting by, and surviving.

There are other ways, but an entirely different orientation is required.

To who you are. To what matters to you. To how your vocation shapes your broader life. To what you aspire to. To how you show up to the people around you.

Interestingly, that change in orientation is not hard-won. It’s right in front of you with clear best practices and easy-to-apply tools shaped by new and fresh ways of thinking.

But the change of direction is all on you. It’s a choice. These changes will happen naturally, organically, and joyfully if you become open to them.

A great CEO balances performance and humanity. Many CEOs neglect the latter, particularly their own humanity.

My leadership style has developed over three decades through learning from others, trial, and much error.  I continue to evolve – and hopefully improve – as a leader. Still, at this point, at least a few elements are foundational to how I approach the task and responsibility of leadership daily.

1. Structured Autonomy

I manage through philosophy and a system of “structured autonomy,” which attempts to strike a balance between direction and freedom. In practice, structured autonomy means that employees are given explicit annual goals called “Key Performance Indicators” (KPIs). These are simple, bullet-pointed metrics that the employee can refer to daily – the “structured” part. It’s then up to the employee to determine the best way to achieve those goals – that’s the “autonomy” part. My job as a manager is to be available for regular and impromptu check-ins, monitor progress, and provide advice and assistance when needed.

2. Employee Career Management 

One of my first supervisors taught me the lesson that my #1 job as a manager is to take care of the careers of my employees. I have never forgotten this lesson and try to treat the careers of my employees as if they were my own. I meet with every staff member and map out their career aspirations in one-, three- and five-year increments. We then plan the work at GNO, Inc. in service of those goals within the context of the overall GNO, Inc. strategy (we don’t “make work” if it’s not on strategy). Sometimes, that means planning the next steps beyond our company – that’s OK if the timing and the reason are right. In my experience, this elevation of the employee’s career leads to several positive outcomes: employees feel valued and are engaged; Our company builds a reputation as a great place to work; and GNO, Inc. alumni go out into the world as partners and ambassadors for our organization. In short, taking care of your employee’s careers leads to good HR karma. 

3. Delegation

This was a hard lesson for me to learn. I used to not be very good at delegation; I’m not sure if it was because I was a perfectionist or a martyr. Maybe both?  But then, one day, someone told me, “Anything that anyone can do 80% as well as you, they should be doing. Delegate it.” I have followed this rule since then, and it works beautifully.  

4. Looking Down + Looking Ahead 

More than ever, it seems that we are managing in a perpetual state of crisis. Whether it is a pandemic, weather event, financial crisis, or even war, uncertainty is the only sure thing. Leading under these conditions requires one to deal effectively with the crisis at hand while ensuring that progress continues towards long-term goals and opportunities. I liken this to walking on a trail in the forest: on the one hand, you have to keep an eye on the ground to make sure you don’t trip on a rock; on the other hand, you have to keep an eye on the distance, to make sure you are following the right path. For example, during the depths of COVID, GNO, Inc. helped craft the PPP program that provided immediate financial assistance to companies across America; at the same time, we developed a long-term strategy to attract remote workers who, post-COVID, would no longer be tied to offices in places like NYC and California.  

5. Modeling Behavior

This is a basic one but necessary. As a leader, you are modeling the behaviors that your organization values. The behaviors that I try to model are hard work, productivity, creativity, collegiality, and what we call “honest optimism” – an optimistic but grounded outlook on the future.

6. The Team is the Leader

Often in America, especially in the media, we focus on “The Leader” and neglect the team’s critical, symbiotic role. A leader is just one part of a greater whole, and no leader will succeed without an outstanding team.  “We > I” when it comes to leadership, the team leads, and the “leader” steers.

Those who know me, know that I’m the expressive type. I like language, phraseology, and metaphors and I believe that life can be lived in technicolor.

I believe the same to be true of a business. I am relatively alone in this thinking. In fact, sometimes my views are considered to be ‘light’ or esoteric because of it.

I think that trends are on my side, however. Go back as little as 20 years. You won’t see much evidence of path-blazing CEOs, of different ways of doing culture, of unorthodox organizational designs, of new ways of business learning.

As recently as two decades ago, most businesses were relatively similar and the range of difference from one business to another was fairly narrow. Not so anymore. Businesses now are highly elastic and there is no single template of how a business is constructed.

Given all this new richness, this might be an opportunity to ask yourself a (beautifully) challenging question:

As a CEO, are you capable of loving your business?

Not ‘like’ or ‘respect’ or ‘believe in’.

Loving.

Whether you can or can’t is for your contemplation. But what I’d like to draw attention to is what might be blocking you from doing so:

• A dulled spirit after to years of toil?
• Not fundamentally believing in what you’re doing?
• Not feeling that what you’re doing is going to succeed?
• Not being around people who believe in greatness?

It’s not for me to persuade you that loving your business is possible. But what I would offer is that the possibility of loving a business is now on the table. It’s doable and I’ve seen many examples of CEOs who are in love with their business and who can get to a place of having such intense feelings about what their business is, or does:

• Cultures so authentically conceived that bring about profound collaboration
• Leadership that moves people to great acts
• Transformational training programs that fundamentally change someone’s trajectory in life
• Innovation initiatives that unearth fantastical new ideas
• Community outreach programs that truly move the societal needle

I could go on for ages, such is the diversity of love-worthy forms of business currently in existence. This article is not about content, however. It’s about a question. Are you open to seeing your business as love-worthy?

If you are – or if you can become this way – can you imagine the impact it would unlock? Can you imagine the energy levels you’d unleash? Can you imagine the loyalty you would earn? Can you imagine the knock-on effects your inspiration would have on your spouses and children?

There are two paths: leading in technicolor or leading in grey. Light yourself up.

We often use the term leader to refer to the individual who heads up a team or organization. But leadership is more about a set of skills and practices than it is a position. Great leaders influence how people think and feel to the point that they take responsible and decisive action.

Most leaders are made, not born. What they pick up along the way is wisdom and experience, and they never back down from learning and adapting when they are amidst something new.

Great Leaders Share These Nine Practices. So Can You.

Great leaders are “students of people” and learn early in their careers that helping others succeed opens opportunities that would never otherwise exist.

1. Listen with intent.

Listening is one of the most important skills to build credibility and relationships. Listen with intent. Clear your head. Don’t plan your answers in advance. Restate what someone describes to make sure you understand. Good listening skills never go away, no matter where you go or what you do. People want to know you’ve listened – that they’ve been heard and their opinion counts.

Replay one interaction you’ve had this week. On a scale of 1-10, how good a listener were you?

2. Ask probing questions.

Listening opens the door to better understanding. Getting below the surface of a conversation takes probing questions and examples. Sometimes a simple “tell me more about that” is all that’s needed.

Try it out tomorrow.

3. Study people.

Understand what’s important to them. Avoid judging, knowing it isn’t easy to do.

Think of a recent situation when someone reacted in a way that you didn’t expect. How could you find out more about their reaction?

4. Share observations about the broader horizon with your team, colleagues, and senior leaders.

What are today’s trends and patterns that could impact tomorrow?

Plan a one topic meeting with your team: Trends and how they could impact the organization.

5. Look for opportunities to engage in a dialogue.

Most often conversations at work are about work situations or resolving problems. Sometimes people will reach out for feedback. Engaging in a dialogue, however, is a willingness to go deeper. Digging for details and examples by using “how” and “why” questions elicits emotional reactions, touching the nerves for what people need and want. Over time, dialogues create a level of trust and respect that daily conversations don’t achieve.

• Think about one person to have a deeper discussion with to get their perspective on a situation or project.
• Design 3-4 open-ended questions to discuss. They talk, you listen.
• You’re not solving a problem. You’re looking to learn more about them. Ask for examples.

6. Practice translating a project or concept into the language of the audience.

Think about an upcoming meeting where you’re presenting. Who is the audience? How much do they understand what you’re working on? How much do they know about the concepts? Get input. Prepare to give details or the big picture overview, depending on who you’re talking to.

Talk with someone in advance who will attend. Afterward, ask for their feedback.

7. Translate vision into individualized responsibilities for your team members.

Great leaders will not leave a new direction or strategy in vague terms for individuals to figure out on their own. People want specifics. Work with them. Figure out the details. At your next one-on-one meeting with a team member, get their perspective on: Are they spending time working on the right assignments with the right people? How have their priorities changed?

Make clarity the issue, not judgement.

8. Trust that your success is based on your ability to create the conditions for others to succeed.

It’s not about you. You are not the center of the universe. Ask for feedback from your team on how things are going. Listen.

Ask yourself, “What do I need to do more of or less of to make the team successful?”

9. Focus on impact and meaning.

Great leaders believe personal success and career success overlap. Take a few minutes each week to write if you’re working on making a difference or just doing the work. I’m serious.

Whoever you are reading this article, I want you to take a moment and think about how you were raised as a child. I don’t want you to think about where, or the events of the era, or even about the quality of your childhood — simply, how your parent/s raised you. 

The reason this is important is because how you were raised affects not only how you interact with others, but also how you expect others to respond to you.  

To a great degree, we are the product of whatever parenting model was in vogue when we were children. I was raised in the early 60’s at a time when “permissive parenting” was all the rage and Dr. Benjamin Spock’s book “The Common Sense of Baby and Child Care” was the go-to source for young mothers. His approach to raising children was to be nurturing and to encourage their individuality. While this might sound very similar to how children are raised today, in reality, children of the 60’s were taught to be very respectful of and deferential to authority figures. If one thinks in terms of the four predominant parenting styles — authoritarian, permissive, authoritative, and neglectful — Spock’s model would be more authoritarian, although it would seem permissive compared to the previous generation.

Tell-Do Parenting

Most Boomers (my generation) were raised in what I refer to as a “Tell-Do” household. Instructions came from the top in a command-and-control parenting style. The parents were the commanders; the children were the subordinates. As children, Boomers were told by their parents what to do and they listened. When our parents said jump, we asked how high. There wasn’t any debate to be had. Failing to comply would result in unpleasant repercussions. “Wait till your father gets home,” was the most dreaded string of words in the English language.

Suggest-Do Parenting

Gen X kids grew up in a markedly different environment than Boomers. Changing economic and social conditions gave Gen X a much longer leash. More and more women were entering the workplace and taking on full-time employment, which meant that Gen X was raised by busy working parents who couldn’t watch over their children at all hours. Between school dismissal and parents getting home from work, Gen X spent many hours home alone, creating our first latchkey children. Their parents were forced to trust them to make many choices on their own, and because there wasn’t anyone around to issue direct orders, Gen X learned to be independent by necessity.

This independence resulted in some leveling of the top-down authority model. The Tell-Do model of parenting gave way to more of a Suggest-Do model. Rather than issuing orders for and about everything, parents would often suggest what their children should do.

While they might sometimes be strong suggestions that might eventually result in repercussions if not heeded, children knew that their parents had a more limited ability to enforce the rules when they weren’t around. It was also easier for busy parents to simply allow their children to manage the small details of their own lives. This dynamic instilled Gen X with a spirit of self-sufficiency. Considering again the parenting styles, this would be more likened to the permissive style and at its worst, the neglectful.

Engage-Discuss Parenting

While Gen X was raised to be more independent, Millennials were brought up under a whole new paradigm of “Engage-Discuss” in which parenting became more facilitative than it had ever been before. So far, this trend has largely continued into Gen Z, as they grow up and come of age.

While the Engage-Discuss dialogue-based model does not call for an abolishment of hierarchy, this interaction involves open communication between the authority figure (i.e. parent) and the subordinate (i.e. child). Rather than harnessing punishment and guilt to change behavior, the authority figure enters into an open dialogue with the subordinate and discusses corrective behavior. This model hinges on a mutually established understanding that can only be achieved when the authority figure eschews coercion for open dialogue. This parenting style would likely fall under the auspices of the authoritative model.

The data suggest there is tremendous benefit in adopting the “Engage-Discuss” model in the workplace. According to William Strauss and Neil Howe in their book Millennials Rising, published in 2000, Millennials have experienced a decrease in crime rates, alcohol, and drug abuse, and exhibit a greater sense of responsibility to others and the environment, as compared to previous generational cohorts. It appears that this model of parenting works and makes great citizens of children.

Gen Z is now entering the workplace and they, too, have been raised on a variation of the Engage-Discuss” parenting model. Again, relating this to one of the parenting styles, this would likely be some combination of authoritative, with a bias toward the permissive. Time will tell, as they enter the workplace in ever larger numbers, if they will interact differently than their Millennial brethren.

When in Doubt, Have a Conversation

We now have a workplace with multiple generations who, as a consequence of how they were raised, are likely to have different expectations and habits in terms of interacting with colleagues. Boomer and Gen X managers need to recognize that younger workers may respond differently than they themselves would have at their age. Moreover, they must be willing to embrace, rather than attempt to stifle, these differences.

By choice or necessity, each successive generation has been raised somewhat differently than their parents. We just need to accept that having conversations, which worked so well in the home, can and does function in the workplace.

‘Business intimacy’.

These two words aren’t often used in the same sentence. Many might argue that it’s not even plausible to use emotive words such as ‘intimacy’ in a business context.
My contention is that it’s highly performance-enhancing to develop such a degree of closeness with your business because it enables you to intervene in a far more nuanced and accurate way.
To illustrate this, every so often I am going to share a story about a business that has honed its success formula to an unusually intimate degree. This week, Trader Joe’s is my example.

For those of you who might not be familiar with this business, Trader Joe’s is a stand-out American retail operation. Not only are they very successful (their sales per square meter performance is 2x that of any of their competitors) but they are also highly unique in their approach. In fact, they defy norms and often do things that might seem counter-intuitive to other businesses.

As an illustration of this, consider their core values:

• We are a product-driven company
• We create WOW customer experiences every day
• No bureaucracy
• KAIZEN!
• The store is the brand
• Integrity
• We are a national chain of neighborhood grocery stores

What impresses me is less about the content, but more about the clarity with which Trader Joe’s knows what it is – and isn’t.
And it’s written down, codified, honed over time, and publicly known. The challenge for you, the CEO, is to get to a similar place of intimacy with your success formula.

Specifically:

• Have you ‘officially’ codified your business and interrogated that thinking to a point of high accuracy?
• Have you written it down in order to create an artifact that can live within the business, known by many?
• Have you made it public, understood, and well-known within your business?

The value of doing so is broad:

• The more people who understand this codification, the better they can execute it.
• The better your success formula is known, so better choices and decisions can be made that honor it.
• The better you, the CEO, understand your business and what makes it ‘tick’ the more accurately you can lead the business.

I am fascinated by this codification process as it’s truly a higher-order form of CEOship that has profound implications across your business. At the same time, I recognize that the higher-order nature of this thinking can feel nebulous or a nice-to-have (which I’m utterly convinced it’s not).