I began my journey in change at Egg bank back in 1996 and have seen many methodologies, training courses and books come and go. Being a curious kind of person, (that can be read two ways – both are accurate!) I signed up to everything going to increase my knowledge and value. From Prince, to Scrum, Scaled Agile to Six Sigma, Design Thinking to Storytelling. One subject that was always a challenge to find great resources on was organisation and business change.
Fast forward 20 years and a great founder of a HRTech platform shares her book with me on this very subject. Full disclosure; I’ve known the author, Lucinda Carney since we were 2 of 8 female founders chosen to be on a scale up programme with PwC a couple of years ago. In short, she’s an incredibly impressive founder and a ninja with challenges. So when I found out this book was coming out, I was already sold on reading it cover to cover.
How to be a Change Superhero is a perfect book for right now. If you recognise yourself in the quote below taken from the book, then you might want to give it a read.
“Change Superheroes are brave and prepared to stand up and be counted. They are also humble with genuine depth of character; they understand and are true to their values and are committed to getting the job done – properly.”
It’s covers the need for courage – rarely spoken about in traditional resources, corroboration, communication and collaboration. Then it moves through responses to change and provides some excellent models to help map out the responses you’re getting and how to handle them.
Culture, values and leadership are so important to enabling change to be successfully implemented and this is covered in some depth. This is exactly what’s required considering that these can also be the biggest challenges to change.
A great approach to communication is also included. This includes comms prior to the change (so often forgotten!), understanding the audience and methods of communication.
Finally, a section on the process for large scale change and touching on Kotter’s eight step process for change. From establishing a sense of urgency through to institutionalising the change. This provides a great foundation for recognising the thought that needs to go in to implementing and embedding change successfully.
If ever there was a time to do change well, it’s now. If ever there was a time to really consider the impact on people it’s now. So if you think you need a bit of help in this area, have this in your back pocket and be the superhero your business needs.
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