What needs to change in the work?
A leadership team may want more collaboration, clearer accountability or greater confidence in making decisions. Each intention means something different depending on the organisation’s work and the people it serves.
Begin with the business situation. What are you trying to achieve, and what is happening now? Ask people for examples of what already supports that intention and where their experience makes it harder. This gives the conversation a purpose that people can recognise.
How do intentions become working practices?
Translate an aspiration into an observable situation. If collaboration matters, which decisions need contributions from more than one team? If accountability matters, who can make a decision and what information do they need?
Examine the surrounding conditions. Objectives, incentives, approval routes and workloads influence what people can do. Asking for initiative while requiring approval for every adjustment creates a practical question for leaders to resolve. People need arrangements that make the intended behaviour possible.
What does change leadership involve?
Kotter’s work on leading change gives attention to a shared sense of purpose, a group able to guide the work, removing barriers and sustaining progress. It provides questions for leaders to consider rather than a fixed timetable for every organisation.
People will need to understand why the work matters and how they can contribute. Leaders also need to listen when experience challenges the plan. An early improvement is useful evidence, but it does not establish that a new practice is embedded everywhere.
How can you involve the people affected?
Choose a manageable piece of work and involve the people closest to it. Ask them what an improved arrangement would look like, what could make it difficult and how they would recognise progress. Give the group enough authority and time to try it.
Mapping can support that discussion by helping participants describe their approaches. Combine it with examples of current working practices and the requirements of the work. Agree what will be shared and keep the focus on learning, rather than judging individuals.
How long will it take?
There is no responsible universal answer. A meeting routine may change quickly; expectations reinforced by years of decisions can take sustained attention. The scale of the change, its dependencies and the organisation’s capacity all matter.
Set review points around the work itself. Ask whether decisions are clearer, whether the intended people can contribute and whether the arrangement survives a busy period. Build on what helps, adjust what does not and continue checking how the change is experienced across the organisation.
Sources and further reading
What would you like to explore?
If this relates to work in your organisation, we can begin with a conversation about your situation and what you want to achieve.
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