It was Winston Churchill who said – “take change by the hand or it will take you by the throat.

Change is something we all go through – in our personal lives and in our work lives. Personal change is something we deal with ourselves, with only one or two others involved.

Changes at work and in our business, involves many people within our immediate teams and across the business. Change which involves complete business transformation, carried out from within the business involves people not just in physical changes to working practices and potentially business structures but to mental adjustment and acceptance as the culture changes and the way a business works transforms. It is that mental adjustment which is the most difficult as it relies on strong and committed leadership at every level as transformation has an impact on the way the company works, how it acts corporately and how it’s people think and act. This cannot be done overnight and takes time – at least a business cycle (financial year) if not longer. It involves communicating and educating, adapting processes and potentially changing the structure of the business or at least the structural mix.

Businesses need to change to keep pace with the changing nature of our world and the environment in which we operate. Change is, at the basic level, about keeping pace with our environment. Ideally, it is about staying ahead of changes around us, the changes our clients and competitors are going through and the speed at which they are changing.  From my own many and varied experiences of change in major organisations, both in Government and in the Private, commercial sector, I prefer to view change as transformation – a positive move to be different. But achieving that difference must create added value, greater capability and improved earning potential. Cultural transformation which is driven only by targets does not work. Cultural transformation is about a journey on the road to be different. That journey will affect everyone as it will lead to a change in how they view life, how they regard the company and how they respect and think about each other.

Changing such mind sets is about persuasion and adapting styles. It is about leadership and communication. It is about transforming in the right way, for the right reasons. There will be a number of people in the business who will find the mental transformation difficult. It is essential for a leader to identity such people early and assist them in that transformation otherwise the skills they have could be lost as the transformation process becomes too much and they become isolated from the reality around them and leave to pursue other, more comfortable opportunities.

Such identification is not difficult as when any transformation starts people quickly form into four distinct groups: the enthusiastic supporters – who will drive change; the passive supporters – who are willing to be led through the process; the uninterested – who will assume that it won’t affect them; and the opponents of transformation – who will actively resist change. The first two groups are not a problem – they will be the bedrock of change. The third group will wake up to the fact that transformation is happening and rush to catch up. The fourth group – the opponents – will find themselves isolated and struggling, and will either reluctantly conform or leave. That sounds harsh but it is the reality of transformation.

In conclusion, transformation is achieved through a blend of: clarity of thought (what it is we want the culture to be); clear and regular communication (to educate and inform); clear boundaries in which to operate (what is and is not acceptable); frank and honest appraisal of individuals (so people know where they stand and how they are performing); structured personal and professional development and the development of business acumen (using personal drivers to grow the right business behaviors, skills and capabilities); recruitment processes which are fair and open; and, above all, strong leadership to drive transformation and create the way we work.