[REMINDER - today at midnight is the deadline for the Whole New Mind give-away]

Suppose you’re ready to make a change. Perhaps you’ll stop solving your employee’s problems for them and empower (require) them to suggest solutions along with the problems. Maybe you’ll start delegating in a more formal way and restrict yourself from following up except for the milestones you’ve previously agreed on. Maybe you’ll start recording decisions that get made in meetings, or writing down action items.

You think you can do this, after all the changes mostly involve your behavior and you’re the boss. You think it might feel weird but you’ll just jump in and ride out the weirdness – like when you gave up smoking, or started working out.

Big mistake. For two reasons. One is social, and the other is social.

#1 – Work is a social place. When people interrupt you with a problem, it’s not just because they don’t know what to do. There’s always another component to it. Perhaps they want permission. Perhaps they just want to interact with you. Maybe they want to be noticed. Whatever it is, if you just change your behavior without explanation, they’ll miss that other part that’s gone away. They’ll wonder if they did something to make you mad. They’ll be less communicative and wait for it to blow over.

#2 – People (even you) are social creatures. You’ll do better with support. We rarely change all at once. If you explain what you’re doing and why, people will help you keep the change going. You can even agree on language they can use to keep you on track – it’s important they know how to talk to the boss.

Takeaways:

• Discuss the changes you intend to make.
• Get people’s feedback and help.
• Agree on acceptable language for them and for you.
• Let them know it’s not personal.

This is one of the side benefits to using a coach or consultant to make the changes. Instead of it being your idea, you can “blame” it on the coach. That makes it easier to rally round the change and for people to confront each other in a constructive way to keep the change going.