What’s the human cost of 12-18 month enterprise transformation projects? These are uniquely grueling assignments that bring together professionals with a diverse range of backgrounds and skills.
They are on a roller coaster ride that will require resiliency from both the team as well as the individual.
Change happens when individuals change. Large-scale change happens as the relationships between individuals change. If you skip the relationship part, you make it much harder to effect change.
The relationship shifts must start WITHIN the team that is driving the transformation efforts.
Some of the questions new transformation teams should tackle in their formation stages include:
—How am I personally being asked to change and grow?
—What are the most substantive things my colleagues should know about me? How can others support me?
—How can I best understand and empathize with people who are different from me? How can I support them?
—How does our team seek to interact with each other? What does it mean to be “us”?
—What practices support living our team values when the going gets tough?
When you start with the relationship aspects of a new team, you increase the odds of that team succeeding.