Coaching your IT team for change: 9 tips

1. Give plenty of warning

Moore puts people into several buckets, ranging from those who willingly embrace any change to those who fight all of it. Even change-seekers, he says, don’t respond well if you throw a change at them without warning.

“It is important to communicate change early and often,” he says. “You have to say, ‘Here’s where we are today,’ and paint a picture of where you are going in the next quarter.”

Some changes — buyouts or leadership shifts, for example — don’t allow for much notice. But often, you know well in advance. Don’t wait for the last minute to get your team ready.

“Too many times we see clients put a new system in place and train users a day before it goes live,” says Sendero’s Tung. “You can imagine what happens: Lack of adoption; everyone pushes back. ‘Why are we doing this? It wasn’t broken! Why fix it?’”

Even if you feel you don’t have time, Shadi Rostami, senior executive vice president of engineering at Amplitude, recommends making the effort to find some, even if that means pushing your initiative back a little. “If I take a little bit more time, maybe talk with some influencers in the company, ask for people’s perspective, the change will be easier to make,” she says.

2. Make it clear why change is coming

“You need a clearly articulated ‘why,’” says Sharon Mandell, CIO of Juniper Networks. “Then you need to communicate, communicate, communicate. And if you think you’ve communicated enough, communicate some more.”