Has your decision made things worse?

Changes of any type can create disruption within your team, even the ones that have been well researched and are intended to improve things. There is often (usually) a lag time between when the decision is made and the beneficial results of the decision manifest themselves. Has your decision make things worse? Are you worried that you made the wrong call?

Whenever there is a change to the everyday patterns in your business, your team members undergo a process of assimilating the change. You might look around, listen, and conclude that your decision made things worse, not better! No worries - your team might simply be undergoing Storming, a natural stage in EVERY process of team change.

An addition to staff is an example - the dynamics on your team change as everyone grows accustomed to one another. Policy changes can have this same gradual assimilation and acceptance impact. And when you are attempting to re-form the culture and its associated written and unwritten rules - what we at PLG are often involved with in client companies - the team goes through a process that is not always fun. 

The stages of team change are not unlike the grieving model:

Forming: 

During this stage the team members are upbeat, even excited about the possibilities. Some are thinking about how their ideas have an opportunity to gain exposure. Some are looking forward to letting go of some of their undesirable tasks and moving to roles they find more rewarding. The reasons vary from person to person, but overall morale goes up. Optimism abounds.

Storming:

This stage is where people discover that they will have to detach from comfortable routines in order to move to something different. Grieving ensues, even when the new is demonstrably better than the old. During Storming you might also observe blaming behavior, as in "We're fine - if only THEY could get their act together!"  Storming is the stage at which you might draw the conclusion that you made things works.

The worst thing for you to do during storming is to stop and make a new decision that counteracts this one. The shift or retraction will start the change process all over again, including more storming. In some cases your willingness to abandon your decision will erode your credibility with your team. If it's a big enough deal that you would hedge your bets with a test, do that, and communicate that. Otherwise, big change requires commitment to a direction through the messy spots.

Help the team move forward by holding them (and yourself) accountable to the behavior that will achieve your desired change. If you need to make a game of it, do so. If you need to re-communicate the reasons why the change is necessary, do so. Empathy toward your team members about the challenges inherent in change is important at this stage.  They are more likely to stay engaged even during difficult changes when they can see that you understand what they are going through.

Norming:

To move forward with change, individuals and teams ultimately have to answer the question, "Everything being as it is, what can I do to make things better?" They start to make the transition into norming. They will start to experiment with new behavior. Some trials will work and some will not. But overall, the experimentation starts to regenerate optimism around the possibility of a positive outcome.

Performing:

When new behavior, new relationships, and new roles have been fully integrated, the team will be operating at a higher level than they were at the outset. Morale will be elevated due to the success of the change. This stage will last only until the next change happens, which means that it might be quite transitory.

The cycle overall:

These stages happen over and over again. The duration of the stages can vary widely, partly determined by company culture (how often changes happen) and partly determined by individual temperaments. Same goes for the amplitude - the intensity of the reaction.  Some individuals and some companies value stasis so highly that any disruption in the status quo will create upset. Others are more malleable and open, such that storming is manifested solely by a passing frown or furrowed brow.