This is how you secure organisational change and keep on innovating

This is how you secure organisational change and keep on innovating

The world around us is changing rapidly. And the world keeps changing. Continuously. This places new demands on leadership. Leadership in which you truly add value to the organization and the environment in which you operate. Value-creating leadership. It is no longer just about economic gain, but also about achieving ecologically sound and socially just results. Complex? I guess so. This can only succeed if you work together with people and organisations with diverse views. How do you make this work? The route to successful change includes four phases. In this blog more about phase 3: Renew.

Phase 4: Renew

In phase 3 (Achieve) you looked at the context of your organization. What does that environment look like? What changes? How does competition, society and legislation evolve? And what does the environment expect from your organisation? On this basis you determined a clear vision and strategy for your own organization. In phase 3 you implement this plan within the organization. But that’s not the end of it. In phase 4, the focus is on securing the cultural change and keeping it on course until the economic, ecological and social goals have been achieved. And keep paying attention, because the world around you keeps changing, of course. Renewal is the new constant!

In this phase, value-creating leadership is mainly characterised by providing insight into the relationship between the behaviour of the organisations, teams and people involved and the results achieved. The most important tasks: consolidating the change approach and managing processes. Continue to appreciate and motivate people. This keeps them motivated to realize the intended innovation. What is not going well can be adjusted. After all, effective new work processes have been implemented. And as I said, keep an eye out for changes.

Maintain, Manage, Transfer

The fourth phase ‘Renew’ includes three steps: Maintain, Manage, Transfer:

Maintain & Manage

In phase 3 you have divided the strategy into a number of projects. Successfully implemented these projects. And the successes are defined. In short: your project is finished. It is now important to secure the change within the organisation or within the partnership. This is very important, because the risk in this phase is that parties withdraw too quickly, before all economic, ecological and social goals have been achieved. This leads to the innovation not being implemented sustainably. As a result, the transfer to and support from other parties is at risk. So keep up the renewal.

It is important to have a good integration plan. It prevents change projects and programmes from disappearing into the closet like paper tigers. Subsequently, it is also important to continue to assess the situation on the basis of this plan. To what extent is the new work process properly embedded in the existing business operations? Our advice: use an effective and clear method, which ensures that team members can independently secure the processes in this phase.

Some parts of the new work process will quickly become part of the standard routine, while other processes will not wear out as easily. So:

Keep providing support

Support people in carrying out the new way of working and the new tasks properly. So continue to pay personal and sincere attention to people.

Continue to invest in knowledge and skills

By extension, make sure people have the skills for their jobs. Support with training, education and coaching. And have personal attention to the needs of each employee.

Continue to monitor the change and the results

Are we still on course? Are we getting the results we need? And where might we need to make adjustments? In short: keep monitoring the change and the results.

Keep sharing successes

Keep bringing your people along in the organizational change. This is how you keep them involved, motivated and committed. Share achievements and – very important – celebrate successes. In the delusion of the day, the latter is often forgotten.

Transfer

How do you transfer the change to the organization and the people involved? That depends entirely on the subject and the type of organisation. Is it about a new product or service? Then you can choose to set up a separate business unit and give the people involved shares. This makes them feel very involved with the product or service, and they have a personal interest in a successful market introduction. Everyone is working towards the same goals.

Tips for permanent renewal

Tips for working on trust, pride and a sense of community within your organisation and/or partnership:

Storytelling

Another tip: work on the ‘soft’ aspects of change. The latter can be achieved by regularly entering into a dialogue. This ensures that people continue to feel involved and motivated to make it a success together. This is even more important if the organization initiated many changes in the past that never lasted. A good method for this is storytelling: conveying the message in the form of stories from the history of the organisation. Stories have a binding effect.

So what? Keep innovating!

The risk of phase 4 is that it distracts from new developments and opportunities in the market. However, the route to success is of course a cyclical process. Stay alert to the changes. On developments in the competition. And to changes in society and legislation. And act on it in a timely manner.

Do you want to know more about value creating leadership? Then download the ebook Leadership in the Economy of Value below or check out our knowledge page on Value-Creating Leadership. Or
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