In previous posts, we have talked about the importance of having in place the right type of foundations for your Change programmes and initiatives.  

In particular, we have explored what our research and practice tell us are the three key interdependent elements that an effective Context for Organisational Change requires including:  

1. Mission – why the organisation exists and how our change choices continue to serve this Mission 

2. Imperative – why the organisation cannot stay where it is at any particular point in time 

3. Vision – what the Change will achieve and where it will take us in our next stage of development as an organisation 

But here we are focusing more specifically on the mechanics of how to create and share the Context for Change – as part of an effective change management approach which includes a people-centred mindset. 

Why providing context for Change matters 

There shouldn’t be too much doubt as to why a strong Context for Change – and an investment in Change Management is important – but, just in case, we revisit the key reasons here.  

The reality for organisations and the individuals in them is that they are in a perpetual state of change. And this creates a perpetual loading on people that can be challenging and overwhelming. It is only by adopting careful strategies with a focus on context, prioritisation and agile capability building that we can win with the initiatives and projects that matter the most for the organisation.

• Context provides clarity and reduces anxiety. 

• Prioritisation is Pareto’s precious gift on an anchor to help us carefully place our finite energy and resources in the most critical areas.  

• Agile capability building gives us the flexibility, adaptability and a resilient mindset to navigate the ongoing shifts. 

According to Ret. US Navy Captain David Marquet, author of the brilliant leadership book 'Turn the Ship Around':  

“As a leader you're exposed to broad information, context and decisions. A crucial part of your role is making that information transparent to your team.”  

 

And Netflix has the leadership principle; context, not control!   

 

“We expect managers to practice context not control - giving their teams the context and clarity needed to make good decisions instead of trying to control everything themselves.”  

As we put this article together, one specific example stood out for us from our extensive work on enabling organisational change with a range of global clients across a range of sectors including transport, financial, healthcare, biotech, aviation and delivery services. This was where we were working with a global technology business where almost everyone seemed to be able to articulate the organisational Context of Change to us. Clearly because leaders had done a great job of sharing the context successfully with their teams.  

4 tips for creating and sharing an effective Context for Organisational Change  

So how do you get this right in your organisation? We believe there are 4 things to consider:  

1. Involvement drives better results  

Firstly, involvement in building the Organisational Context for change usually delivers a better result.  

Simply telling people the Context for Change that the organisation is operating in is rarely sufficient on its own and won't give you much engagement in your organisational change initiatives. So, involvement matters. For example, can you get people together from across the organisation and leverage their input on the challenges you are facing? What we see increasingly in our work is a growing trend for organisations to attempt to involve very large numbers of people in building these types of messages from the ground up.  

And the proliferation of digital channels available inside the organisation has meant that many more people than previously can contribute to the conversation around it. However, if you do decide to go down this route you have to remember to close the loop effectively on the process. It's highly unlikely that every person in the organisation impacted by your Change programme will participate in this way.  

Which means it is essential to go back and tell everybody involved in the process about your outcomes and findings.  

2. Collaborate with leaders to ensure ‘One Voice’ 

Working collaboratively with leaders is critical in building a leadership body who have ‘One Voice’ around the Context for Change.  

Crafting Change messages collaboratively brings consistency and effective leaders actively help each other during communication activities. This type of mutual support is essential for building trust, encouraging collaboration habits and achieving shared goals. And working collaboratively helps to develop cultural intelligence and empathy to lead effectively across functional lines and geographical borders.  So, think about bringing the Change Leadership group together into a facilitated session to create the draft Context for Change. 

You should obviously be prepared for a session like that but quite often if you give leaders a 'strawman' they will accept it but never own it. This means that you often have to contract upfront for their involvement in doing this exercise - and it pays dividends to share contextual information with them ahead of time. This takes additional work to do but it's well worth taking the time, effort and risk to get them in a place where they are well prepared to debate and finalise the Context for Change. 

 

3. Expect to iterate

It is also good to remember to build in testing for refinement of the Organisational Context for Change.  

Even if you have involved significant numbers of people across the organisation at the beginning of the process, remember to track back with those involved earlier and expect to identify gaps and iterate. Especially to help people who need support to relate the Context to their local reality.  

In any Change programme you will be expecting to engage the support of local leaders, stakeholders and teams in creating and sharing the Context for Change – and preparing them for their role with practical training and enablement is key to your success.  

A word of caution, however. Be very careful about trying to achieve too much at this stage. For us it would be a great start if a majority of people could understand the imperative for change within the organization, if not the full Context.  Everything we know about building and sustaining people’s Commitment to Change tells us that this is a process that takes place over time. And the first step is building clarity around the need and urgency for Organisational Change.  

4. Share the Context for Change through stories  

At Changefirst, we also believe storytelling has a vital role to play here.  

Change Leaders who have the capability to tell stories will bypass logic and connect emotionally with their people.  Stories can humanise data, remind us that we’re not alone in the challenge and actually turn disruption and fear into an inspiring, hopeful organisational and personal journey.  

Storytelling is also contagious. People remember and relay them to other people in the organisation, and they can even convert your organisational stories into their own stories to create a greater connection with them.

Two things to keep in mind here as you go:

•  approaches from town-hall style meetings to collaboration platforms and internal apps - and face-to-face meetings within smaller teams. What is really important is that you create a dialogue with people.  

• avoid one-way communication where people have no chance to discuss things. We know this is a lengthy process but taking time to tell people about the Context for Organisational Change is key. If you don’t, it's likely that every new and subsequent Change initiative will have to start by convincing people yet again that the Change is necessary and what the Vision for the Change is.

Some concluding thoughts 

We see building and communicating the Context of Change as core preparation for any Change effort.    

We would even go as far as to say that delaying the start of a change until this foundational work is undertaken may be the best course of action.

I’m sure we’re not alone in this thinking and experience. Leadership expert Ron Ashkenas puts it well when he says:

"Leaders have to place strategic changes, initiatives, and goals into a broader organizational context, or they risk losing good talent, burning out managers, and wasting money on programs that don’t pay off.

People have to see why what they’re doing has to change, why they should suddenly be moving in a new direction.”

If we want things to be better in our organisations. If we want our people to be different and better than before, we have to help them change.  

And Context for Context is crucial to making this happen.