PEOPLE & ORGANIZATION
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How to make change work in large organizations
In large organizations, an average of 70 to 85 per cent of all change initiatives fail. According to our many years of experience, this is particularly due to a lack of social and emotional aspects like insufficient empathy and motivation skills of executives (in addition to other reasons why transformations fail). We recently had the…
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Psychological Safety in Change Initiatives
Highly functional and cohesive teams are crucial for economic success in our VUCA world. One of the most important elements in achieving this is psychological safety. This term was introduced by Harvard professor Amy Edmondson in the 1990s. She defined psychological safety as a state in which the work environment is safe from interpersonal risks.…
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Top 5 Change Leadership Trends 2024
Artificial intelligence (AI), appreciation of communication, self-reflection, employee’s mental health, and a persisting polycrisis will be our top 5 change leadership trends 2024.
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Digital Transformation done right
The digitalisation or digital transformation of an organisation is one of the most common changes. At the same time, it’s one of the most difficult ones. But why does the implementation of a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system fail so often? Why does the continuous use of digital technology to improve customer experience and…
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Change Management in New Work Projects
New work projects are changes that require management. Like the construction of a new office building or the conversion of individual offices into open-plan offices. Without change management, they harbour social and emotional dynamite. So any management would be well advised to involve employees as early as the planning stage for new working environments. You…
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5 Reasons Why Transformations Fail
Do micromanagement, overtaxing the middle management, wrong labelling of a change programme or delayed start of change management sound familiar to you? Then you are close to some evident answers to the question why transformations fail.
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Social Leadership on an Aircraft Carrier
An aircraft carrier is a high-performance social system: up to 5,000 people often live and work in confined spaces for months on end. This extreme situation reveals how leadership deals with group processes and human dynamics. The captain is at the center of a system that would quickly become dysfunctional without targeted social leadership. CEOs…
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How to achieve social & emotional motivation
Motivation wanted! Corporate communications departments are under constant pressure to change: they are expected to become more agile, to be structurally and procedurally transferred to Corporate Newsrooms, and to work in a more digital, collaborative, and independent manner. While there are clear step-by-step instructions for achieving such technical goals, the social and emotional aspects, which…
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Corporate Heritage in Change Initiatives
Corporate heritage is a company’s intangible legacy. It is its history. It is the sum of its employees’ stories, which reflect the company’s values and culture. Anyone planning a restructuring, a post-merger integration, a culture change, or other changes should conceptually incorporate corporate heritage from the very beginning. This is because it plays a key…
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Business Succession in Family-Owned Enterprises
For family-owned businesses, generational transition represents a profound change. It becomes particularly challenging when business succession coincides with a period of strong growth, a major digital transformation, and a pandemic all at once. This is exactly what Schilling Engineering GmbH, a cleanroom specialist based in Baden-Württemberg, experienced. We spoke with Ute and Gaby Schilling about…
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Information Overload in Change Initiatives
Information and communication are crucial to the success of change projects. However, transparency should not cause additional anxiety. That is why we at viadoo Change Guides pay particular attention in complex projects to when we communicate which messages, in what form, through which channels, and to whom. We discussed information overload and other topics in…
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What a Good Change Vision Looks Like
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood […], but teach them to long for the vast and endless sea.” (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry) Change processes often focus on strategy, structures, or new technologies, but rarely on a shared change vision. This is one of many reasons why 70 to…