Market Leader 3rd ed Intermediate Unit 3 Listening: Change
Script:
How do you advise businesses which are planning to change?
The two important things to take into account when advising businesses is, first of all, help them understand what does success look like - what are they going to change, how are they going to measure that change, and how will they know they've been successful? And I think the second key point is to make sure people are fully engaged in the change, that they feel this is something they are doing for themselves and not something which is being done to them.
What are the typical problems that businesses face when they're going through change?
Change is a very dillicult process. There are many problems, but I would say the two, perhaps most important, ones are, first of all, what we think of as change fatigue. Organisations have often faced wave after wave of change, programme after programme. Organisations become very cynical about programmes' ability to deliver real change and change that's sustained over time, so it can be very hard to bring people along and create passion, enthusiasm around change when they've seen it again and again.
And the second big area that I see is the ability to get leaders engaged and aligned around the change, so that leadership speaks with one voice, leadership provides a role model for the organisation, and very importantly, helps the organisation stay focused on the change throughout what is sometimes a long and difficult process.
Can you give us an example of an organisation that you have helped to change?
We work wilh a wide range of organisations around the world. One we helped recently was Nokia and Siemens when they merged their networks business. That was a very exciting change programme at a time of trying to create better value for the organisation. We helped NSN create a future for the organisation, so we had 8,000 people involved around the world in a conversation over 72 hours in which they constructed the values of the future organisation and, following that, then put changes in place that would make that future organisation a reality for them.
Questions:
0:01 How do you advise businesses which are planning to change?
0:33 What are the typical problems that businesses face when they're going through change?
1:35 Can you give us an example of an organisation that you have helped to change?