Emotion: the over-looked resource

Nick Ranger at Brandpie explores the one thing most companies overlook during transformation 

Anyone who has moved house – cited by 57% of respondents to a Legal and General study as the “most stressful life event” – knows how challenging change can be.

The reality is that humans are hardwired to resist change. Blame the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for our fight or flight mechanism. It perceives change as a threat, rather than an opportunity. We prefer to remain firmly in the status quo, thank you very much.

Every organisation experiences transformation at some point, be that a new CEO appointment, M&A activity, or technological change. How can they defy the now famous statistic from McKinsey & Company stating that 70% of change efforts fail due to “employee resistance and lack of management support”?

How can businesses bring people (who don’t like change) along for the journey?

Overcoming resistance

It’s an important question, especially regards retaining your best people. Gleicher’s formula says: dissatisfaction (D) x vision (V) x first concrete steps (F) > resistance (R). In other words, the pain of loss is greater than the power of gain.

At times of uncertainty and change, talent may be considering their options and need good reasons to stay. When a merger involves a power imbalance, for example, people on the less dominant side will be leaving behind something they’ve been part of to move into something new and unknown. If they don’t understand the “why” behind that, the business will inevitably suffer. 

Although there may not be an immediate impact on the bottom line, in time the business will have a demotivated workforce. We see a ripple effect when disenfranchised people feel they don’t belong or share the same values and beliefs as their employer company.

When employees don’t feel they have a voice or stake in the future of the business, their confidence in the organisation and its leadership erodes over time. Why wouldn’t it? And unfortunately, it’s the most valued, constructively critical people who tend to walk first. 

Understanding the “why” 

A common misperception is that business and emotion are entirely unrelated. That we needn’t think about soft measures like purpose when we make business decisions. After all, the metrics that matter are the hard KPIs housed in the annual report, financial metrics such as share price growth. 

Transformation is, in fact, a critical time to pay attention to the emotional drivers that keep people engaged. That’s down to the undeniable fact that businesses are run by people. Take digital transformation. It reshapes the roles of the people inside the business. It makes them more productive and more efficient—but only if they stay for the ride. 

Why are we doing this? Why do we exist? Why do we need to change? What role do we want to play in the world, and how is that being reinforced by the transformation that we’re going through? All are very valid questions your workforce will be asking themselves, and hopefully of leadership, at the time of significant transformation.

Emotional drivers help people foster all-important understanding of the ‘why’ behind the change. The only way to go about responding is to be crystal clear on the answers. 

Purpose as a north star

When leadership is clear on why the business exists, where they’re headed as an organisation, and how they are going to get there, much of the hard work of transformation is already done.

It starts with having clarity on three things which together form your business vision: purpose, ambition and strategy. Business purpose must be clearly defined as a priority, and it should have an emotional thought that every single stakeholder can connect with. Without that, people’s trust and engagement with the business will erode as it heads deeper into transformative times. 

Returning to the moving house analogy, if you didn’t see a compelling reason behind having to pack up your treasured belongings and go, you wouldn’t do it.  

What does purposeful mean?

Some organisations still hang purpose on concepts such as ‘serving customers better’ or ‘delivering growth for the company and clients’. Neither are going to get people out of bed over a sustained period, let alone commit to a transformation programme. 

Increasingly, talent consciously seek out careers at purposeful organisations. They want to, through their work, contribute positively to society and to our planet. Think purpose, and Patagonia or Unilever, companies that make key strategic decisions based on what they care about, come to mind. But the spectrum of purposeful companies is growing and talent are taking notice. 

Arguably no sector faces greater transformation than in Energy. Here, Norwegian-based renewables company Statkraft has developed a new vision based on ‘renew the way the world is powered’. Connecting its people to this statement immediately created pride and engagement across the company. 

Sustaining connections

A renewed focus on purpose is a prime way to guide a workforce through times of disruption. And emotion can be the most powerful yet often-overlooked resource in the purpose-driven transformation toolkit. 

For businesses that want to bring the best people along on the journey, drive productivity and stronger results across the board, action points include:

1. Define your purpose

What is the ‘why’ that sits at the heart of everything you do as a business. To have the greatest impact, this purpose needs to drive toward making a meaningful difference in the world – something that employees care about in order to create an emotional connection. 

2. Align the ELT

Linked to the above, the leadership team has to connect with the purpose first and foremost if it’s to be embedded through the business strategy.

3. Use it consistently 

People’s emotional connection to your organisation is only as strong as the last decision made. If you aren’t using purpose as a consistent lens for decision making, people will notice. So ensure each one is guided by your “why”, especially the most difficult ones. 

All change, be it M&A or a pivot to a new market, is about people—simply because businesses are run by and for people. There has to be something bigger at the heart of the company that motivates them.

Finding and communicating that is not necessarily easy, but it is critical to driving the hard measures every business needs. 

Nick Ranger is Managing Partner, Consulting, at business transformation consultancy Brandpie

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com