{"id":961,"date":"2018-04-18T10:00:33","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T10:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/?p=961"},"modified":"2025-07-01T17:20:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T17:20:22","slug":"change-is-good-you-go-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/change-is-good-you-go-first\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cChange is good; you go first.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim Hemerling is an author and a senior partner\/managing director at the famed Boston Consulting Group.\u00a0 One of his particular areas of expertise is change management, so he must be a very busy guy these days because there\u2019s a lot of change to manage.\u00a0 Change is coming at us rapidly, and it\u2019s accelerating.\u00a0 He recently gave a TED talk entitled, \u201c5 Ways to Lead in an Era of Constant Change.\u201d\u00a0 In that talk, he outlines strategies for coping with change without allowing the relentless nature of it wear us out.\u00a0 To learn more about his \u201c5 Ways,\u201d please continue reading below.<\/p>\n

\u201cChange is good; you go first.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ~ Dilbert, cartoon character<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Change is all around us . . . social, economic, political, regulatory, and of course, technological changes buffet us every day.\u00a0 And all this change can be discouraging.\u00a0 Just when we have things humming along nicely, something changes and we feel like we\u2019re back at square one, starting all over again.\u00a0 So how do we adapt to this rapidly evolving world we find ourselves in?<\/p>\n

We have written many times here about Employee Engagement, and while Hemerling doesn\u2019t use that particular term, he does talk about \u201cputting people first,\u201d a theme that is the common thread for all five of his \u201c5 Ways.\u201d\u00a0 So then, here are the five strategies Hemerling suggests we pursue to make the challenges we face \u201cinvigorating instead of exhausting.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Inspire through purpose. While upper managers may go weak in the knees and get all aflutter over increasing revenue and cutting costs, most other people in the organization probably don\u2019t.\u00a0 If we\u2019re going to ask them to help adapt to all the changes before us, we need to give them something that is inspirational, something they can feel good about.\u00a0 True, we can\u2019t all be saving the whales, but our customers don\u2019t buy from us because they want us to make money.\u00a0 They buy from us for reasons that are important to them, reasons that matter.\u00a0 Tap into those reasons to find an inspirational purpose.<\/li>\n
  2. Some changes may require cost-cutting, even layoffs, but your people will also want to see something more than just battening down the hatches to ride out the storm. They\u2019ll want to see initiatives that are forward-looking and that say, \u201cWe\u2019re not only going to survive this change, we\u2019re going to thrive in it.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to come out of it better and stronger than we were.\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. Give people the capabilities they need to succeed during the change. They may need training, or tools, or technologies, but whatever it is they need to be successful, you had better find a way to get it for them because if they\u2019re not successful, you won\u2019t be either.<\/li>\n
  4. Make your place a place of learning. If people can see grappling with change as a learning experience, they will be more likely to embrace it as a means to grow in their jobs and to increase their value to the company.<\/li>\n
  5. Leaders need to hold people accountable to achieve results, but they have to do it in a way that is less directive and more inclusive. This is a real key. People don\u2019t want to be seen as minions who scramble around after the boss throws down a few lightning bolts.\u00a0 They want to be seen as colleagues who have valuable thoughts, ideas, and opinions to share.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So Hemerling didn\u2019t use the term, but if \u201cEmployee Engagement\u201d is the goal, his \u201c5 Ways\u201d will get you there.<\/p>\n

    When you\u2019re confronted with the sorts of challenges that rapid change brings, you need creative, innovative thoughts and ideas to overcome those challenges.\u00a0 Don\u2019t limit yourself to only you and your management team for those thoughts and ideas . . . get everybody involved.\u00a0 When you\u2019ve got a tough problem to solve, it should be an \u201call hands on deck\u201d moment.\u00a0 It only makes sense to seek help from the people who are in the trenches, hands on, dealing with that problem every day.\u00a0 Hemerling\u2019s \u201c5 Ways\u201d is a pretty good path to get you that help.<\/p>\n

    If you would like to watch Hemerling\u2019s TED talk, use the link below.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    https:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/jim_hemerling_5_ways_to_lead_in_an_era_of_constant_change<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Jim Hemerling is an author and a senior partner\/managing director at the famed Boston Consulting Group.\u00a0 One of his particular areas of expertise is change management, so he must be a very busy guy these days because there\u2019s a lot of change to manage.\u00a0 Change is coming at us rapidly, and it\u2019s accelerating.\u00a0 He recently<\/p>\n

    Read More\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[37,33,127,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":962,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions\/962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}