Is your team really ready for what’s next?

A Change Isn’t a Reset Button

Almost every team I talk with right now is in the middle of some kind of change.

A merger. A restructuring. Layoffs. A hit to revenue. A new strategy. A new leader.

And almost every one of them is eager to get to what’s next.

It reminds me of a mistake I made several years ago.

I was brought in to work with the partners of a professional services firm that had just elected a new managing partner. The board wanted a new strategic plan. A lot had changed since the last one was created, and with a new leader in place, the timing felt right. My job was to facilitate the process. The partners would build the plan; I would guide them through it.

The new managing partner had won the vote, and the majority of the partners had supported him. And, being the optimist that I am, I assumed the transition would go relatively smoothly and we could get right to work on the future.

Boy, was I wrong.

Before I facilitate any session, I talk with each participant individually. I want to understand what’s really happening before I ever walk into the room.

So that’s where I started.

What I heard changed everything.

Another partner had been up for the role and was not happy about losing. Some partners questioned whether the new managing partner was the right person for the job.

And underneath the transition was a much bigger issue: the firm had become deeply dysfunctional under the previous leadership.

Conflict wasn’t healthy disagreement.

Partners were threatening to leave and take clients with them.

Trust was low. Relationships were strained.

I remember hanging up after one of those calls and thinking, Wow. There was so much anger and frustration here.

And then came the question I didn’t want to ask myself:

Do I have the skills to facilitate this?

I had planned to facilitate a strategic planning process. I was quickly realizing this team wasn’t ready for one. I knew what I had to do next, and it wasn’t particularly comfortable.

I was worried about losing the engagement.

Worse, about losing their confidence.

And about being seen as someone who couldn’t deliver.

I went back to the board and told them I didn’t think we should do the strategic planning retreat they had hired me to facilitate.

This team wasn’t ready to talk about the future. We had to deal with the past first.

I assumed that because something had changed—a new leader had been elected—the team was ready for a new beginning.

They weren’t.

The history didn’t disappear when the vote was counted.

So we changed course.

We used The Five Behaviors framework, but we didn’t start with strategy, goals or even accountability.

We started with trust.

We worked on what healthy conflict actually looked like: disagreeing without every disagreement becoming personal or threatening the firm, then making decisions, committing to them and moving forward together.

And it didn’t happen in one retreat.

I continued working with the firm for the next two years, including coaching the new managing partner and working with the executive committee as they learned to lead differently together.

There were difficult conversations. Old behaviors didn’t disappear overnight. Trust had to be built and rebuilt through what people did after they left the room.

Because change can’t happen in one meeting.

That experience taught me something I’ve seen in many forms since:

The change itself doesn’t change the team.

Whether it’s a merger, layoffs, a loss of revenue, a restructuring or a new leader, people bring the old environment with them.

They bring the habits they developed to survive it. The things they learned not to say. The people they learned not to trust. The conversations they learned to avoid.

Organizations spend a great deal of time planning the change: the announcement, the new structure, the new strategy.

We spend far less time asking what the team itself needs in order to begin again.

A change can create the opportunity for a fresh start.

But a change on paper isn’t a reset button.

I do this for a living, and I still assumed it was.

So here’s the question I’d leave you with:

Where might you be assuming your team is ready for what’s next, just because something has changed?