Resilience: The key for managing change [video]

Vistage speaker Vered Kogan knows about change.

Over more than a decade, she has coached hundreds of executives and organizations on change management, helping them to put best practices into place and leverage organizational change to achieve new success. Kogan has pinpointed one of the most significant challenges CEOs face: they are often confronted with changes and risks that threaten the growth of their companies.

These changes and risks stem from various factors, including disruptive technology, cybersecurity threats that are widespread in today’s information-driven age, and complex industry changes and demands. If companies aren’t nimble and do not adapt to change quickly enough, they risk slowing business growth and becoming obsolete.

In Kogan’s experience, the crucial ingredient that determines whether a company can emerge from significant changes successfully is resilience.

“The key is for leaders to build resilience not only in their technology, but also in their people,” Kogan says.

Change is inherently difficult. And that’s reflected in the fact that 70% of organizational change programs fail due to employee resistance, according to a McKinsey study. Resistance is more likely if employees hold beliefs that are not aligned with your company’s vision, or if they feel a change is not beneficial to their career or personal well-being.

What’s more, some employees may believe they won’t be able to adapt to the change – they are “biologically wired to resist” the change, says Kogan. That wiring makes it likely that these employees will revert to old behavioral habits.

Kogan advises leaders to address this challenge by providing support to employees who will naturally face mental and emotional challenges associated with change. Change can affect your business positively if employee needs are proactively addressed, or negatively if change currents are ignored and your people are left to face it with no guidance.

The bottom line, says Kogan, is this: “Whether your strategy for growth is through forming alliances, M&A or growing organically, focus on building a more resilient workforce to make your organization more productive, innovative and agile.”

Resilience is the ultimate competitive advantage in the face of change.

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