Promise change . . . and sell it (carefully).

An excerpt from Business As UnUsual

Part of being a responsible manager is preparing your people for change. Take this to heart—if your company is being acquired, merged, or downsized, or just restructured in some fashion, life in the corporation is going to be different. Your people need to know that.

There should be change. There will be change, and your employees probably can sense it, even if you would prefer to think otherwise. So promise change . . . because that’s a promise you can keep.

In fact, you should be taking advantage of this opportunity to make some changes that are needed in your part of the organization. You need to understand that the workforce is primed for change, anticipates it, and therefore is poised to adapt more readily than usual.

As part of the management team, you also are responsible for helping to “sell” the changes. But this doesn’t mean you just throw people a sales pitch about the positive side of the changes and how wonderful things are going to be. Employees should be given a balanced viewpoint. Usually there is both some good news and bad news, and both sides of the story should be told.

So let people know what they can expect. Give it to them straight. They deserve to know, they can handle it, and you couldn’t fool them for long anyway. Really level with the employees—it helps protect your credibility as a manager, and that’s also very important right now.