Building Change Resilience: Creating a Positioning Statement

  GroundProbe Project and Change Manager, Trish Ladd

This is the first in a short series of articles about Building Change Resilience. Each article is stand-alone and can also be read consecutively for the overarching view of our journey to change resilience.

This calendar year has seen more growth for GroundProbe and a focus on continuous improvement in many areas of the business. The key to an organisational mindset of continuous improvement lies in the ability of GroundProbe’s team members to bounce back from disruptions and challenges and to strive to find ways to deliver more effectively and efficiently. Doing this well, day in and day out, means understanding how to support each other and strike the right balance between work and life.

When we talk about bouncing back, overcoming obstacles, and continuing to strive for excellence, we are really referring to an organisation and its team members who are change-resilient. With a growing recognition of the need to build change resilience, GroundProbe has taken the opportunity to review its change management practices.

There are a number of definitions for change resiliency however at the core is the ability of an organisation to adapt and grow where challenges and disruptions exist.

What does it take for this to happen? Again, there has been a considerable amount written about how an organisation might do/has done this. This series of articles looks at GroundProbe’s approach to growing change resilience and follows the four steps I have formulated from my years of practice as a change manager:

Step 1: Create a Positioning Statement;
Step 2: Develop the Change Management Framework, methodology, and artefacts;
Step 3: Empower Change Leaders; and
Step 4: Enable the internal culture and decision-making.

Create a Positioning Statement

The starting point is to create a Positioning Statement. This is not as straightforward as sitting down and crafting some great wording. It actually starts with gathering key stakeholders (internal team members at different levels and roles) and working with them to assess the current position, which is the starting point for all good change planning, as collectively you need as accurate a view as possible of what is happening currently, what is working and what is not working well, and what are the pain points. It is essentially completing a stocktake to examine more closely the actions, experiences, and outcomes the organisation is experiencing when changes are being implemented. Once there is a sound understanding of what is working and what needs to change, it is time to draft a Positioning Statement. It would be easy to spring into action at this point however, it should be resisted! We need to start by documenting a shared understanding: the Positioning Statement.

A Positioning Statement is often used to capture a brand point of difference however it has other uses. It can be particularly useful to describe how GroundProbe team members will go about managing change; it guides the approach and message and ensures consistency. The intent of a Positioning Statement is to align team members’ efforts with the overarching company goals and values. An effective Positioning Statement is not changed often, and it resonates with team members. It becomes the guiding principle for the GroundProbe practice of managing change.

A Positioning Statement is important because it provides a unifying purpose for all team members and has the following benefits:

– When team members are aligned, they can more effectively focus on what is needed to support the change;
– Across the organisation the approach is understood and messaging shared; and
– It provides an anchor or reference point to check back against and a guide to leadership teams and managers by which to on-train new team members and promote the internal culture of change.

Some recommendations when deciding to develop a Positioning Statement are:

– Create something that is unique to the organisation; copying from another organisation will not resonate with team members;
– Be specific in how you describe what change management means to your organisation;
– Create a statement that is realistic, tangible, and achievable; and
– Share it around and let others come and tell you what it means to them (if it is the ‘right’ statement for your organisation then this will happen without you needing to seek it out).

GroundProbe’s Change Management Positioning Statement

GroundProbe will take a planned and consistent approach to Change Managment for all of our initiatives, ensuring the approach used is scalable and fit for purpose. Change Management means gaining buy in and supporting our team through the change, focusing on sustainability to ultimately benefit all of our stakeholders, employees, customers and shareholders. 

– Trish

At GroundProbe we are a global team of innovators renowned for pushing boundaries and revolutionising the industry with cutting-edge technologies, pioneering thinking and innovative digital solutions that play a crucial role in safeguarding human lives and assets.