Team Changes: The Four Secrets

By Dino Zafirakos

Imagine that you have been part of a team for several years. You’ve already gone through four or five waves of change, and again, the team leader arrives this month with a familiar quote: “This is going to be the ultimate change. This is the one that will make the difference. Not like the others — this one does.”

You can’t believe it. Another change? What could they have come up with now?

This occurs in many teams and is known as shift fatigue.

On a personal level, people tend to experience resistance to change, so imagine the resistance that can be generated when there are several people who have to implement a change together.

However, there is a solution.

A few years ago I discovered Margaret J. Wheatley’s Basic Conditions for Successful Change, also sometimes called Basic Conditions for Sustainable Change:

Condition 1. Context: New information about the change must be provided and all people must be informed about what, who, when and where the change will occur.

Condition 2. Purpose: All team members should share a common purpose about change.

Condition 3. Participation: Each team member should be able to contribute their ideas and perspectives on the change and how it will be carried out.

Condition 4. Decisions: Each person should understand how their input and suggestions will be used, and how final decisions will be made.

When these conditions are not met, the consequences can be disappointing, as shown by the responses to many companies’ work environment surveys.

“Please give us your opinion; your opinion counts; Your opinion is fundamental to us.” Employees fill out the survey and never hear from it again. No changes are made and no one explains how their answers will be taken into account.

A year later comes another survey: “Please give us your opinion, it is essential for us…”

Now imagine the difference if they were told, “Please fill out this survey. With all the comments we will prepare a report that we will share with the whole team. From there, we will follow up every two weeks to check that it is being implemented…”

And most importantly: to fulfill what was promised. This fulfills Wheatley’s conditions for change.

When a leader tries to implement a change in his team and does not succeed, it is worth asking the following questions:

• Which of the four above conditions were met and which were not?
• What can be done to cover the missing conditions?

Team coaching is an ideal approach to accompany change processes, whether they are already happening or are on the horizon.

And, after all, what is a conflict if not a sign that a change wants to happen? Conflicts often appear as an indicator that there are underlying issues that need to be addressed, signaling that some change needs to be made.

Changes can be very marked—such as the implementation of a new goal plan—or very subtle—such as resuming a pending conversation that has been postponed. Each requires specific, conscious attention.

Move forward wisely and embrace change.

Dino Zafirakos is CRR Global’s Faculty Leader, Executive Coach, and International Systems Coach.

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