Managing through change
We are in the process of a change in ownership at work that has left my staff with a very uneasy and uncertain feeling about the future. There are many questions concerning direction and strategy being asked, along with a higher state of anxiety. Operating under this cloud of uncertainty requires more day to day Functional Management and more communication, from me, from my manager and from senior management.
We have known about this for 5 months now and we are really in the quiet period before the execution of the sale, however the level of intensity and uncertainly has grown tremendously. Senior management did a good job of communicating and letting us know when the present owners decided to sell, however given the nature of this type of transaction, there has been little communicated with the exception of when the sale may be finalized. We have setup a "Ask the President" page to increase communications. This has allowed employees to anonymously as questions of the President and Senior Management and the feedback that we have received is that IT and HealthCare Operations will be ok, however Finance, HR and Legal are at risk.
We had an incident this week surrounding workflow and responsibilities that became very emotional, and charged the entire group. Our VP started inquiring about moving a high profile but low volume function from my group to another group. His rational was that it was just busy work and my team was busy enough, and did not have to do this busy work. His inquiry got out and started spreading through my team who viewed this as the start of the breakdown of our group. After many discussions with my team, my manager and eventually my team and the VP, we were able to calm my group. Although my team is less charged and has really calmed down, they are still very skeptical and guarded concerning their future and the future of the group and company.
One thing that I have learned from this is that communication is key to change. This information leaked out and was floating around like a bad rumor. Once it was out, we did our best to confirm and communicate it, however it took meeting with the VP to really settled down my team. If this change was contained and communicated correctly from the VP, then the delivery and acceptance would have been better received.
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