INNERGISE!

I always felt I was a slight disappointment to my Grandmother. She was a wonderful lady, I was very fond of her and yet as a young guy growing up, full of energy and cockiness, I always felt I knew more than I did and enough to get on with life.

Looking I back realise that if I had listened more to her experiences and words of wisdom I might have avoided one or 2 mistakes of my own along the way.  As so often happens with those who have done and seen more than us, we ignore the value of that experience and the way it can contribute and potentially shape our decision making and the direction we take.

Where my grandmother and I differed, and where we never saw eye to eye, was when it came to jigsaw puzzles (a highly underrated pastime in this technology driven world in which we live!). She was absolutely adamant that when doing a jigsaw puzzle that it was cheating to have the image of the completed jigsaw (which was always on the box) in front of you as you completed it.

Her argument was that if you knew the end result you were trying to achieve that made it too easy. (NB. I don’t want to come across as some jigsaw geek, but I learnt, and this is a good one for quiz night, that jigsaw puzzles – another great British invention (John Silsbury 1767) – were originally designed to help kids learn the map of the world. And also that they didn’t have a completed picture to work to. So, sorry grandma – you were right!)

Anyway, my argument was that if you didn’t know the endgame and what success looked like, you fumbled around experimenting with all sorts of combinations of pieces, and it took an awful lot longer to get there.

So where are these ramblings leading? 2015 has led to Innergy again working with numerous organisations who need or want to change. The market’s changed, the customers are spending less and things need to happen differently. The bosses know it, the managers know and the employees know it.

Yet ask any of those groups to say where the business is going, what the key priorities are and how it is planning to get there and you get a range of different answers. So often leaders take my grandmother’s route and drive changes through, spending time, money and energy either without being really clear on the endgame or without communicating both the need for change or how it will happen to those who are part of it.  Whether this change involves restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, downsizing or quite simply working smarter and leaner,  few take the time to paint the picture of the business moving forward, revisit the vision for where the company needs/wants to be, and share what “different” looks like and feels like. The result is:

• More conflict as decisions are made in the absence of an agreed direction
• More waste as processes, systems and reporting are out of date
• Greater uncertainty within the team
• Reduced motivation and engagement from those within the business
• Reduced productivity as people take their eye off the ball

It’s not a fun place to be, it creates uncertainty and impacts results and yet is neither difficult nor time consuming to get right.

We know is that change without leadership, employee engagement and communication fails. The following 5 steps can help ensure that your business is part of the minority who get this right:

1. Re-clarify and articulate as a leadership team where the business needs to be in the context of the change (if the team at the top aren’t singing from the same hymn sheet, nobody else has a chance!)
2. Confirm what the business will feel like and look like to customers and employees in 12 – 18 months (use a time frame that works for you)
3. Agree the business priorities and focus resources appropriately.
4. Create a forum to share the direction of the business, what it will feel like/look like moving forward how you will get there and get feedback as to else needs to happen to make it even better.
5. Communicate and re-communicate progress and the where the business is going and celebrate success
6. Start again!

Just as every jigsaw puzzle will be completed quicker and less frustratingly by looking at the box and having a clear picture of what success looks like, so every business will become more effective at realising its intentions.