Promote Change Fearlessly

If you’ve ever wanted to lead your business through a change, you know that if not done properly, your actions will be met with resentment and outright resistance. HBR recommends three behaviors that will help you quietly promote change in your business, without alienating others:

1) Be the change- By modeling exactly what it is that’s changing, people will directly see how you want things done instead of guessing. Seeing a leader in action puts others at ease…if the leader is doing it, then everybody else will too.

2) Make the negative positive- Use the changing environment to really listen to peoples’ complaints and understand how to make them positive. This will require concentration and empathy, but will lead to changing resistance into positive motivation.

3) Find like minded souls- There’s a good chance that change is happening because something is broken, and other people see it too. Find those people and have them be your champions for change.

Image thanks to Flickr