The challenge to learn the art and science of individual change is now paramount to any group success.
Lasting, productive change efforts require significant changes in behavior to succeed. Most change management projects also require fundamental shifts in people's mindsets, culture, relationships, language, and other aspects of how people work with each other. Yet, most of today's change efforts still attempt to mandate changes in people from the outside in, through strategies such as the threat of job loss, new performance standards, or replacing old systems with new ones. However, any change effort will only succeed if people choose to change. Personal change only works if people commit to the process of change -for themselves.
Without support and guidance however, people are reluctant to risk or invest in the new behaviors. When an organization's leaders overtly model the new behaviors first, they create a safe environment for their managers and employees to also embrace change. As today's organizations require shifts in thinking and behavior in order to succeed, their leaders need to accept their responsibility to walk the talk they are asking of the organization.
Despite the efforts of well-intentioned change management professionals, most of their education and training efforts do not produce sustainable changes in behavior.
2. Many academic and journalistic accounts have demonstrated the effect of layoff on workers. But, the latest research demonstrates, layoff survivors are themselves not immune to the negative effects of downsizing and experience declines in work performance and quality of life.
Recent studies show that the symptoms of layoff survivor's syndrome are highly correlated with workers' perceptions of downsizing. Because of declining job satisfaction and job commitment caused by layoffs, productivity may in fact decline. This is an unintended consequence of restructuring.
Unsurprisingly, economic woes are simply a wake-up call for leaders to challenge themselves and their teams to best manage the worry and despair and achieve even more ambitious results through rigorous self-awareness and the new possibilities that go with it. Uncovering the beliefs and assumptions underlying behavior and results and replacing them with higher-performing choices via coaching is now a must for today's leaders and managers to navigate through the choppy economic waters.
Businesses especially need to train their managers to also become coaches during economic downturns.
Coaching and building strong teams is one of the key ways companies can survive through a downturn and also build their business. BCI believes that the increased enrollment of managers in coach training courses we are experiencing shows that business leaders are seriously beginning to rethink the ways in which they will have to run a business in the future.
Now, more than ever before, organizations need the leadership that only economic coaching can provide. View the video below for more information on how we can help.
Learn More About Economic Coaching Here
