Unify the team
It is critical for companies that are going through change or restructuring to not send different messages to different areas of the business.
“If you’re going to have any change, you have to be unified,” Anderson says. “We spend a lot of time discussing, analyzing and critiquing different issues. We don’t always get immediate buy-in at the first meeting or even the second meeting. After everything has been discussed, it is very important that the leaders of your organization are delivering the same message, because you don’t want your employee base to get confused. You don’t want your employee base to think that they are expected to perform a certain way here, but if they go over there, they are expected to perform a different way. In doing that and delivering a common message and getting all of your employees bought in to it, now you can take out the message to your customer base.”
A turnaround creates a lot of change within a company, and it is imperative that employees are willing to follow new plans in order for a turnaround to be successful. There is no room for resistance.
“It’s very important to give the naysayers an opportunity to get on board and give them a full chance to make sure that they understand the message and direction,” Anderson says. “When you go through things like this and people just haven’t done it before, there’s always a lot of fear, and fear is going to bring on some level of resistance. You have to be patient with individuals and make sure that they have all the knowledge and the correct knowledge. A lot of times, the information they have been told or possibly heard is incorrect. It’s important that they understand what the facts are and what the truth is.”
But once you’ve gone through the education process and they have all the facts and have had an opportunity to ask any questions and are still choosing not to get on board, at that point, you have to make a decision.
“At that point in time you have to ask yourself, ‘Is it better for this person to remain in the organization with potential negativity or with hesitation?’ I would bet most CEOs would say that’s something that they cannot have is a person not fully supportive of the organization. Whatever short-term pain that may create, it’s better for the long term and it definitely pays off.”
