Great leaders understand that imposing top down solutions often fails to produce the intended results. Even if the solutions are informed by the best intentions and employee engagement surveys, resistance is guaranteed. It’s befuddling. 

But when you take a closer look, it starts making sense. Leaders aren’t cultivating the soil for change.

Why change initiatives fail …

Chance is that the good intention gets lost in translation as it travels from the top through the organisation.

And more likely than not, the intention builds on survey data which doesn’t do justice to the diversity of experiences and perspectives in the organisation.

Some people might not even bother to reply to surveys anymore. Thus half of the picture is missing.

… and what to do about it

On the other hand, everyone craves to be listened to as they share their perspectives and opinions on what is needed for meaningful change that they personally would care about.

Understanding people’s actual experience is a much more promising place to start a change initiative than hatching out a plan in a small circle of top leaders. And it naturally leads to the needed dialogue.

Dialogue is more than just gathering information. It harnesses organisational capacity and whets the appetite for change. 

In short, if you want change, you need to cultivate the soil to allow something new to seed and grow.

Supporting Change Leaders

At Choose Leadership we support change leaders to do exactly that.

We let your vision and plan guide you as you embark on a journey of cultivating the social soil of your organisation:

• Cultivating groups of change agents across the organisation.
  These diverse and perspective rich groups remain open for others to join and become motors for change from within the organisation. 
• Creating spaces where people get the chance to be deeply listened to as they share perspectives on their present experience.
  These intentional spaces of listening turn into dialogue, not interviews, nor debate.

Why this works

Dialogue lets new possibilities naturally emerge from the social field and leads to a high level of trust and connection.

The overall aim of this approach is the co-creation of lasting change. It’s not one sweeping change, but a step by step development that inspires more and more people and draws them into co-evolving the new. All the while, leadership is in dialogue too. This is neither bottom up, nor top down change.

This change is co-created. Unsurprisingly, more and more organisations approach change this way.

We’ve seen it work time and again. When you involve everyone in

• reflecting on the status-quo
• making sense of what is happening in the present moment, and 
• thinking up ways of making the workplace better

you unleash a well of energy and creativity that transforms the organisation. 

At Choose Leadership, we are passionate about unleashing change in organisations, for purposeful, humane, and energising work. 

If you want to engage and activate your people, but you don’t know how to do it in a practical way, reach out to us.