In this Expert Insight Interview, Alexis Gladstone discusses managing change within organizations and coming out stronger. Alexis Gladstone is the founder and president of Intelead and has extensive talent leadership, training, and development background.
This Expert Insight Interview discusses:
- How to manage and lead change within organizations
- Why a lack of communication is the most common cause of failure in change
- The importance of addressing the elephant in the room upfront
Accelerated Change
We have witnessed a lot of change in recent years, some of it driven by the pandemic, some of it driven by technology advances, big business, automation, etc. Whatever the driving factors, most people would agree that we live in a period of accelerated change.
However, not everybody understands the best way of approaching and managing change within an organization, especially how to lead change. Change often fails due to a lack of proper communication, and according to Alexis Gladstone, if leading change came down to one thing, it would be communication.
Communication Is Key
Unfortunately, sometimes communication within an organization boils down to matter-of-fact instructions, without much effort to paint the picture of why the change is happening and where the destination is.
With Intelead, the communication plan is always about telling the customer what is in it for them and communicating often. Stories are vital in business these days, and companies need to tell the story of why they’re doing what they’re doing, how it will help, what’s in it for everybody in the organization, and what’s changing along the way.
The Elephant in the Room
When changes are announced or talked about, we all tend to get a bit vulnerable and worry about how it would affect us. This is the part that organizations need to address from the get-go. The change may not be to everybody’s liking, but addressing the elephant in the room upfront is critical nonetheless.
Whatever process you look at, people tend to start apprehensive — they don’t know what it will lead to and whether they want to go along with it. This is why organizations have to let their team members and customers go through hearing about it, stating their concerns, and coming out on the other side.
Our Host
John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.
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