Change Leadership: Inspiring and Aligning Teams During Organisational Shifts

Leading change isn’t just about strategy; it’s about people. How can leaders inspire, engage, and align their teams when navigating through organisational shifts or turbulent markets?

Change management is a complex and often lengthy task, however, like any business change - it’s something that is inevitable. Whether you’re a business owner reading this wanting to make change within your organisation, or you’re a leader unsure how to navigate an upcoming organisational shift, there are a few things that you can implement to inspire your teams and see change as something positive. 

Accept that the only guaranteed thing in life, is change

It may sound bizarre to look at organisational change through a spiritual lens, but a huge part of change management (and doing it successfully) is having the right mindset to begin with. Change is constant - whether it’s small changes that we make to our morning routine, through to moving cities, changing jobs, or getting a promotion. Often with organisational shifts that feel “out of the ordinary” it can send a ripple effect of worry throughout teams and even senior leaders. However, to ensure that your team is aligned and unphased by change, the key outlook that you can aim to instil is a mindset of acceptance. 

How boring would an organisation be if it stayed the same? Look at some of the biggest, most successful organisations in the world; let’s look at Coca-Cola as an example, incepted over 135 years ago and one of the most well-known brands, the amount of organisational change needed to achieve such status is exponential. 

A case study was produced on Coca-Cola by Change Management Insight, highlighting that the organisation had to undergo change in almost every single aspect of its structure. From creating more soft drinks (Fanta, Sprite, Dasani) to changing recipes (Coke Zero, Diet Coke) to appeal to a “healthier” market, through to headcount expansion and being sold in over 200 countries; Coca Cola are an incredible case study on how to manage and navigate change. This doesn’t mean that the brand didn’t come up against hard times - product sales declining, consistent change in leadership and external factors such as economies shifting would have all impacted the brand. 

But, something that can be taken from Coca-Cola as a brand is that within their organisation, they have accepted that to be “the best” and also stay relevant, they must continuously change with the demands of their consumer market. They’ve accepted that the only guaranteed thing within their journey is change. It wouldn’t be an assumption to say that employees at Coca-Cola have this shared mindset and vision - which is what has enabled it to be such a popular brand for over a century.

Encourage idea generation and innovation

Change doesn’t just happen from a knee-jerk reaction to something - it’s a process that often takes a long time, with the minds of many to come together and make it work. Resistance to change can transpire because people don’t feel included in the decisions that are being made. Granted, you can’t expect to run every minor detail past every employee, but instead - encouraging a culture of idea generation and innovation can make change feel like a collective effort. That way, people’s ideas feel seen and heard, and change can come from within the organisation at all levels, rather than just from C-Suite and senior leadership. This makes change better to adapt to because new ideas are being developed (and accepted) over time. 

Going back to our case study of Coca-Cola, a huge business change they made (to ensure that they were able to keep up with market demands) was an R&D unit. This included research into current products as well as consistently developing new ones. In essence, Coca-Cola have a whole department dedicated to change. This doesn’t mean that tomorrow you should suddenly change your organisational structure to make it change-centric, but it’s food for thought on how you could implement the principles developed by Coca-Cola to encourage a culture of change, innovation, and idea generation.

Invest in the best talent 

An organisation is nothing without its people. The most important element of ensuring that you have a great organisational culture that will adapt to change is the right people in post to lead and drive that.

Talent is often one of the biggest sticking points for a lot of organisations - unable to attract or retain talent being the biggest issue. This can often boil down to things such as being unable to offer the best packages or benefits, through to simply losing against the competition. 

Talent should be the #1 priority from the moment you incept your organisation. Who is leading your key departments? Are they well-liked? Do they adapt well to change? Do they have longevity with the organisation? These are all key questions that must be asked - especially if organisational change is on the horizon.

In summary, organisational change and ensuring that teams are inspired doesn’t really take moving mountains to achieve. Instead, it’s a simple set of values, principles and behaviours for everybody to follow to ensure that change will be the most consistent (and positive) thing within an organisation.

To see the full timeline of Coca-Cola’s organisational change, we recommend this link here.