Help employees adapt to change

For the employees of Seagram Spirits and Wine Group, the 1990s started as usual. The wealthy and powerful Bronfman family owns 28 percent of Seagram. Employees have grown accustomed to the family's generations of control over the business. A paternalistic management culture prevails, the company attaches great importance to internal management, adopts an orthodox, top-down communication method, and has strict internal hierarchies, but at the same time employees also obey discipline, serve the company wholeheartedly, and are very loyal. This family-run business model is very common in the spirits industry, the original main business of Seagram. Seagram owns some well-known brands such as Royal Chivas, Seagram VO and Martell. Company employees are proud of the reputation and excellent performance of these well-known brands.

A drastic transformation, a throbbing pain

By 1994, however, CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. began a series of ground transformation. For employees, it means the beginning of chaos.

Over the next five years, they underwent a massive corporate restructuring and cultural transformation. The company acquired two major entertainment assets and spun off its core beverage business. These changes resulted in several layoffs, but also slashed costs, improved business performance, and created a more process-oriented business.

In 2000, Bronfman sold the entire company to Vivendi, a French media and utility company, for $23 billion. This meant that Seagram's journey from a feel-good family business to a high-efficiency company came to an unexpected end. This combination created a new top media entertainment company, Vivendi Universal. All Vivendi really needed was Seagram's entertainment assets, and the spirits and wine business was sold because it didn't fit with its strategy.

Seagram was jointly acquired by its two main competitors - Pernod-Richard from France and Diageo from the UK. They carve up the brand that Seagram owns. The former has acquired six Scotch whisky brands, while the latter has further cemented its industry leadership with Seagram's well-known brands.

Seagram's spin-off sale caused uproar within the organization. Many employees were furious, thinking they had been betrayed by the Bronfman family, and were extremely dissatisfied with Vivendi's treatment of older employees. Although the company also communicates with employees on a regular basis, hoping to increase employees' confidence in the future, many employees still cannot accept the reality that a very good company suddenly ceases to exist.

People tend to have a strong desire to defend what they know and are familiar with. For those tasked with implementing change or responsible for motivating employees after change, ignoring this or not knowing it at all will inevitably lead to the failure of their work. Staff unions simply cannot accept change. They are full of anger, full of resistance, and always passively ask "Why bother?" Even projects that are carefully designed to advance the new organizational order are unacceptable. Furthermore, when employees are faced with a decision that makes no sense from their point of view, no matter how sincere the motives for the decision may be, cynicism and distrust of management can creep in.

Empathize with employees, empathize with emotions

The long journey to getting work on track starts with putting yourself in the shoes of your employees as they’ve just gone through a massive transformation, emotionally and business-wise. are in the adaptation period. Empathy (empathy, refers to the leader's ability to correctly understand the thoughts and feelings of the employee, and the ability to deeply understand the latter's psychological state) can be expressed to them by:

Acknowledge that the employee has experienced difficult transition period.

●Understand how employees feel when they feel distressed.

●Indicates the understanding that the difficult period is not over yet, and employees have to remove the interference of old things to adapt to the new situation.

●Understand and appreciate the impact on employees of the transition they have just gone through.

In other words, let employees know that leadership recognizes that difficulties have existed in the past, exist now, and will continue to exist for some time in the future.

Expressing empathy is critical to normalizing work. First of all, doing so is conducive to easing interpersonal relationships. Employees are generally not accustomed to hearing their supervisors say, "It's been a tough time" and "It's been a psychological and behavioral cost for everyone to adapt to the transition." In most organizations, people are shocked when they hear leadership say it understands the difficulties employees are going through.

Secondly, having employees witness the new way their supervisors speak and do things can prompt employees to think about how they are going from the old to the new. They think, "Our leaders face problems, not reject or avoid them, and maybe I should too."

Third, paying attention to how employees are going through the transition creates a good atmosphere that makes Employees encouraged each other during the transition and recovery beyond. Let everyone realize that almost everyone is stressed, overworked, stressed, and even distracted. Expressing an understanding of employees won't eliminate these transitional symptoms, but it does reduce the lingering negative effects of the old and lead people to a brighter future.

Some extensive communication methods commonly used in work nowadays cannot reflect the understanding and consideration of employees. Some organizations simply send out a few pamphlets and simply answer some questions perfunctorily on the concerns of employees after a merger, acquisition, joint venture or downsizing. Often, in addition to this symbolic effort, companies often promise "business as usual" and call on employees to "focus on their work."

There's no better way to show empathy to employees than to make it clear that leadership understands the difficulties of transition, takes responsibility for organizational disruption, and considers the need for an adaptation process for employees in business advancement plans. Employees are also the most receptive to this expression. Few organizations express deep and genuine understanding and empathy for the situation of employees in transition. So when you genuinely show your understanding to your employees, the employees will notice and start letting go of old things.

Four steps to express concern

There are four steps to expressing awareness and concern about the emotional fluctuations of employees after the transformation, namely:

● Take responsibility for the organizational chaos caused by the transformation take personal responsibility.

●Recognize that employees need to take concrete actions to accelerate the process of letting go of old things.

●Use some symbolic signs and rituals to promote the old and the new.

●Have a "vent meeting" to help employees eliminate the sense of loss of old things.

Overcoming some of the negative consequences of mergers and acquisitions and other forms of transformation begins with leadership recognizing its role in causing organizational disruption. A leader's sentence "Here's my fault" conveys to employees that everything they're going through is a normal, natural reaction to organizational transformation. In most companies, leadership that says they are responsible for the company's throes is not like an empty promise of "business as usual", but a clearing for employees to let go of their inherently outdated ideas and practices and embrace something new the way.

Joe Douglas took over in 1999 as CEO of a mid-sized high-tech company. In the first two years of his tenure, the situation was very good. But then came the recession and the bursting of the tech bubble, which sent corporate profits, stock prices and morale low. In 2001, Douglas announced the company's first-ever business reduction. About 10% of employees were let go, most of them in low-level support jobs. Then, Douglas announced another first in company history: the acquisition of a struggling competitor. The timing of the acquisition announcement confuses employees -- how can a company just lay off a slew of well-behaved employees and then buy another company at a premium? Unbeknownst to the employees, Douglas had been working on the deal for several months and had decided to walk away from it when he saw the economy pick up. But he changed his mind when he heard that a third party was also interested in acquiring it.

Douglas quickly closed the deal before the price war began. When announcing the acquisition to employees, he had no idea what the combined company would look like and what the merger would mean for the individual. For the next few months, the company was almost paralyzed. It was clear to everyone that several positions would be redundant after the merger, but no one from the leadership said what they would do with it.

In early 2002, Douglas' company had several big market wins. He feels the worst is over, both personally and for the company, and he's eager to see the company's finances improve. However, the views of the employees are very different. Managers often complained to Douglas that employees seemed listless, not engaged enough, and that morale was pretty low. The company's attrition rate is also on the rise as several key business leaders resign.

Rather than shunning and ignoring these, Douglas convened a special meeting of the leaders and department managers of each unit to discuss the current situation. A few days later, he convened a special all-hands meeting, held in the company parking lot so that everyone could attend at the same time. Douglas' speech was carefully prepared, and the point was to convey to employees that the company understands what you're going through. At the end of his speech, he pledged to implement a formal work normalization plan.

Set goals, be realistic

Of course, it's not enough to talk about it on paper, and concrete actions must be taken to eliminate employee resistance to change plans. If a leader talks about how employees need time to adapt to the transformation in words, but requires employees to complete tighter goals in a short period of time in action, it will only cause confusion and distrust of employees.

Employers need time to adapt to new ideas, and leaders must keep this in mind whether or not they're taking it into account in their plans. Recognizing this and putting it into action can often build a leader's reputation with employees and accelerate the process of changing old beliefs.

People need time to adjust to the impact of the transition, to accept the loss of something, to understand what hasn't changed and what is changing. In an organization that has just gone through a transformation, when people are not sure about themselves and how to do things, people naturally cannot respond quickly to business needs.

At the computer company mentioned above, according to the initial integration plan, a new information technology system was required to be installed. CEO Douglas delayed the integration by six months in order to give employees enough time to deal with the major overhaul. He noted that employees need time to learn the new system. He wants to make sure that until the system is fully switched over, his employees feel that they are well trained and have no discomfort with using the new system.

Setting realistic and achievable goals is also important. After a transition, employees already feel overwhelmed and become even more passive when confronted with goals that they perceive to be beyond their capabilities. Setting meaningful but actionable goals for employees so they can achieve something early in the transition will help build confidence and drive forward.

At Douglas's company, they assess the performance pressures that business plans place on employees at different levels. Although Douglas and the rest of the management team wanted to achieve the best possible business performance, they recognized that letting go of some short-term goals could re-energize employees and restore good performance in the long run.

Of course, senior managers can create an atmosphere that recognizes and understands employees' feelings and concerns post-transition, but it is their immediate supervisors who have the most direct influence on employees. They are the management representatives who get along with the employees day and night.

Douglas had senior management communicate the expectation of understanding how employees felt to managers and supervisors and asked them to participate in the implementation process. First, senior managers expressed an understanding of the difficulties middle managers experienced in transition, and then asked middle managers to revise their own teams' schedules and performance expectations. Finally, middle managers express their understanding to their subordinates during and after the process of shrinking businesses and mergers and acquisitions.

Say goodbye to the old and welcome the new, and stay on track

Transformation is not easy for leaders who plan and implement transformation, or for employees who have to go through it. It is one thing to understand the difficulties of transition, and quite another to eliminate some unconsidered psychological and behavioral consequences of transition. Therefore, if you want to recover faster after the transformation, you need to express your understanding of employees on both the perceptual and rational levels.

Many organizations use symbolic signs and commemorative ceremonies to help people accept the lost reality of the old organization and recover from some of the negative effects of transformation. These practices are all proven tools for connecting people who are adjusting to life in transition and helping them navigate the inevitable changes that lie ahead.

Many things at work are symbolic signs. Take, for example, a long-established family-run financial services company. After its first-ever massive business downsizing, its CEO ditched the company's 5, 10 and 25-year employee service award list, signaling that the company no longer expects employees to serve the company long-term.

Commemorative ceremonies are symbolic events that largely mark the transition from old to new. In many organizations in transition, the tone of the commemoration is the demise of the old, including the burial of the past and the awakening of the future. A utility company used an opportunity to downsize to drive a more entrepreneurial and adventurous corporate culture within the company. A human resources manager designed a display for a "Grim Reaper" -- a man in a cloak and a scythe, the embodiment of death -- to cut off "dead" behavior and let a The "baby" of diapers brings new behaviors. There are also events that celebrate the good old days gone, like putting items in the company's history windows for preservation.

"Break Out" is an exciting event to help people let go of old things. In terms of length of time, it can be hours or days, and it can be scheduled as an ongoing or one-time event. The Vent will improve people's understanding of how to adapt to transformation, and its purpose is to help people get through the letting go of old things in the adaptation process. The three steps to letting go of old things are as follows:

1. Raise awareness. Help employees rationalize what they are personally reluctant to give up and understand the real reasons for their persistence.

Second, re-experience. Talking to employees about their past and the transitions they are going through helps them rationalize their feelings.

Third, mourning. The mental process of letting go of the old is through the passing of everything that has passed -- the old ways of seeing and doing things, the lost hopes and expectations, all that is no longer fulfilling, meaningful, and familiar Something---the mourning is done. In the process, a concept of renewal and regeneration is instilled invisibly, in order to induce people to accept what is in front of them.

Expressing empathy is the key to normalizing work. Make it clear that leadership understands the needs, feelings, issues, and perspectives of employees after mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, downsizing, and various other forms of transformation. For leadership, it doesn't really matter if the employees are right or not. What's important is for employees to understand that the leadership knows what they've been through and how they feel about their current job and their future.

Original text adapted from the book Charging Back Up the Hill by Mitchell Lee Marks with permission. CITIC Publishing House registered the copyright of the simplified Chinese version of this book in 2003. The English version is published by John Wiley & Sons. Translated by Li Jing.

Mitchell Lee Marks is the principal of JoiningForces.org, a website that advises management on mergers, restructuring and other transformations, building team effectiveness and developing organizational culture. He is also the author of several books, including Joining Forces: Making One Plus One Equal Three in Mergers, Acquisitions, and Alliances.