Change Management and Innovation

How a leader can effectively communicate change initiatives and enco

Sep 23, 2006

Leading change management and stimulating creativity and innovation within your team is crucial to maintaining a competitive edge in global, highly evolving markets.

Leading a change initiative can be a daunting task. You may have to deal with great resistance from your staff and need to look at ways of managing the change so that it empowers staff not threatens them. One way to spark enthusiasm for change is to encourage creativity and innovation including looking at incentives to reward great ideas or solutions to problems.

5. Do your team members react to change initiatives well?

Change in the current economy is a fact of business. To compete on a global scale, businesses have to be willing and able to change with changes in the market. Employees that can adapt to these changes easily without resistance will keep the climate positive and motivational. How the changes are communicated to the team is the key element. When a change has been decided by upper management, ask for the team's input on how the change should be implemented. Empowering them to find creative solutions to managing the change will ease the adaptation.

6. Are team members innovative and creative?

When a problem arises, are creative, innovative solutions suggested or do they stick with the tried and true. Innovation is highly important to market competitiveness. Like any creative process, innovation needs to be nurtured, explored and supported by open communication, resource allocation (sufficient time, brainstorming space, necessary ingredients/supplies, budget) and a climate that allows for calculated risk taking. Allow the team to learn from their mistakes and encourage having a plan B.

In the next article, Workload and Accountability: How a leader can support workload sharing and ownership of tasks, we'll look at the questions:

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The copyright of the article Change Management and Innovation in Training/Professional Development is owned by Joni Rose. Permission to republish Change Management and Innovation in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.