Plan
Noticing change (or noticing the need for change) is the first step in managing it. To make the plan work, you will need to involve your team and get the members to buy into what will happen.
Compare Change to Goals
The way change affects your group depends on how the team operates and the goals it works toward. As you plan how you will manage a change, you must first determine what impact, if any, that change will have on your team. Identify exactly what aspects you need to address and adjust. You may need to do nothing or you may need to overhaul many aspects of the team. The main point is not to react but to understand and take appropriate action.
Get Buy-In
The single biggest mistake is to pretend to team members that change doesn't exist. To do so is patently insulting, treating your team members as though they were children and you were the parent. You also lose the opportunity to get their help. Remember that these are the same people who often have a better practical sense of what is going on than you do. Ignore what they can teach and you might find yourself setting down a path that, for various reasons, cannot possibly lead you anywhere positive.
Not being honest with your team members creates an uncomfortable atmosphere that is not conducive to effective activity. Your team members are the very people who can scuttle any plan you conceive. It becomes like trying to coax a group of people to follow you when they've sat down on the pavement and locked arms in protect.
Change management experts strongly recommend getting buy-in from the people that the change will affect. Many organizations make the mistake of treating that as part of the implementation of change. By then the resistance is generally in place. Instead, bring team members into the planning process as early as possible.
People tend to give more enthusiastic support to ideas and changes that they helped to engineer. They are more understanding of change and aren't as resentful or obstructive as when they feel that someone is forcing change on them.
Review the Plan
Before you put a plan into place, wait some time and have a review. This is why it is so important for leaders to establish a trusting and open environment in which people can ask questions and get straight answers. People scrutinize change and often expose incomplete thinking, poor judgment, or the need to review other options before moving ahead. Better to find problems with your “baby” than learn in retrospect that it included illconceived initiatives. By reviewing the plan with all your team members, you also continue giving them a sense of ownership of the change.
