Managers are on the front lines of business transformation. Coach them accordingly.

A human-centric approach is key to building a future-ready workforce with a culture that supports continuous growth and evolution.

It’s a tough time to be a leader. That’s doubly true for managers who are guiding people and implementing broader enterprise transformation at the very same time. Pandemic-weary and COVID-fatigued. Increasing demands coming from every direction. High turnover. Rapidly moving tech change. Tons of ambiguity. Put simply: every additional layer of newness will feel  painful for managers right now.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Organizations that acknowledge this reality at the front end of transformation planning are positioned to get the full lift that new processes and technology provide. In fact, focusing on the human factor through the transformation process has been shown to increase the probability of the initiative’s success to more than 70%.

Here’s the key: positioning transformation as a human-centred change forged with your leaders vs. something that’s imposed on a group is a much more productive way to move change forward.

At EY, the results of a 2021 global board risk survey done with the University of Oxford showed that accepting ideas from more junior personnel positively contributed to transformations being successful. A system is really up and running only when the people meant to deploy it are fully engaged.

As competition for good talent is fierce and burnout is high, how do you lead transformation so it helps you keep and build talent rather than put talent at risk? This is where a coaching approach comes into play. Coaching flips the paradigm of “developing” leaders — something imposed on them — to helping them rise to a challenge by offering a new lens on leadership. Coaching a leader is about seeing a challenge from their perspective, joining them there, then helping them see it in a new, inspiring and more productive light.

Once leaders are operating from this place of possibility, they are naturally creative and organizations can begin productively deploying the proverbial toolbox of resources and skills development programs they can draw from.

Conversely, failing to take a human-centred approach can result in wasted time and effort. Research, such as the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve, has shown that 75% or more of the investment in training is lost when not enough attention is paid to setting the right context for learning and paying attention to how the learner feels in the learning process.

Organizations that keep three valuable principles in mind can better prepare managers to guide teams through change — even as our broader environment reinvents itself day over day:

1.  Slow down to speed up. When folks step into leadership roles, they’re essentially committing to rallying a team to success. The question is: how? Psychological safety, open communication and two-way dialogue create trusting working environments. But most managers need support and a structured approach on how to actually establish those building blocks.

Slowing down the beginning of your transformation to spend time with leaders on these topics can have a lasting impact on the team and the transformational benefits you’re hoping to unleash. Don’t skip this integral part of the process.

2. Create a compelling team purpose. People don’t want change for change’s sake. That’s particularly true now, after two years of forced change driven by uncontrollable external factors. In fact, EY research shows purpose-led businesses outperform their peers.

The thing is, managers must see how the purpose is imperative to individual and organizational success before they can bring others on board to embrace change. This is beyond getting buy-in; it’s about instilling a sense of shared all-in commitment. Helping those who will lead transformation to understand the why behind the what is incredibly important. Enable managers to understand why transformation matters and how they will work to foster individual and collective productivity, results, efficiency and impact.

3. Have the difficult conversations you need for transformational success. Putting humans at the heart of your transformation means looking at change through your people’s eyes. What will happen if conflict occurs? How will you resolve issues as a group? What channels will you use to communicate and keep people engaged? Managers will need support in addressing these issues. Give them opportunities and forums to think this through. Empower managers with clear frameworks they can follow. Provide framing, guidance and tools so managers feel confident leading the change experience with their teams.

What’s the bottom line?

Managers have been through the proverbial ringer over the last 24 months. It’s not enough to ask them to now lead transformation initiatives in pursuit of new resilience and greater agility. You must first invest in managers themselves by taking a coaching approach that positions them to lead change well.

As part of our EY Humans@Centre series, my colleagues will be sharing their perspectives on how you can structure your organization to support your managers and, in turn, your employees.