Engage skeptics
Most employees who are skeptical or outright resistant regarding a change have a vested interest in maintaining the old way of doing things. Change might mean a different job description, lost customers, the termination of friends or associates, or something else that drives their resistance.
As the leader, you and your management team have to drill down with dissenters, particularly those in key positions, and find the root cause of their resistance. Sometimes, there are legitimate concerns, and sometimes it might require some tweaking to the plan. But you do have to get them on board because there will come a time when they’re either coming along or they aren’t.
“Most of the early resisters are typically very faithful to the company and concerned about the direction,” Bicket says. “When you engage them, talk to them about what is driving their concerns, what is feeding their worries about a course of action, oftentimes you’ll discover that they are concerned about a broad policy that is counterproductive for their group. Sometimes there are legitimate reasons to modify or fine-tune. But with the hard-core resisters that are risking mobilization of the plan, sometimes you just have to remind them that, right or wrong, this is the direction we have to go, and all you can do is ask them for their support.”
You can help win over department-level dissenters by breaking down the walls and silos that limit lateral communication. If a department’s employees get a better sense of how their work fits into the larger picture, their willingness to buy in to your organization shift increases.
“In some organizations, I’ve seen a kind of FOB, or ‘freight on board,’ attitude regarding a department’s work,” Bicket says. “A marketing department that is charged with developing promotions and campaigns might pull together a really attractive plan and just sort of throw it over the department wall. The divisiveness of that act is intolerable. It permits a situation where work can be done, but wins can be had solely on a departmental level. That is a very corrosive situation to have.”
You start to solve that problem by building teams that span across departments and developing metrics that can measure the success of an interdepartmental project.
“If a marketing project is carefully coordinated with production and then carefully communicated and executed by the sales group, that is a polar-opposite outcome of the first example,” he says.
As 2010 progresses, Cox Target Media is generating success with its newfound focus on employee knowledge and customer service. Cox, a privately held company, doesn’t release revenue for business units, but Bicket says his unit had a successful 2009.
“I don’t think people tolerate a lot of success that isn’t a win for the entire company,” Bicket says. “I don’t think people work that way. Employees are smarter than that, and they’re concerned about how a plan makes a company more competitive and whether it helps put the company in a stronger strategic position.”
How to reach: Cox Target Media Inc., (727) 399-3000 or www.coxtarget.com