The Circle of Change

The circle of life, we are born, we live, and then we die. From a change perspective, the circle of life is a set of intervening spirals of smaller circles of constant change. If we summarise at a certain point in time, those spirals make up our current life situation.

Each spiral represents different dimensions in life; family, work, personal health, personal freedom, etc. and they all hang together.

Change affects everything, positively or negatively. There is almost never a neutral effect of the change in one dimension, upon all the other dimensions. The connections between the different dimensions matter and must be part of the equation when companies want to make intentional change to their business.

Change will come whether we want it to or not. Often the intention to start and complete a new change circle is made by other people than yourself. In these cases, you as an individual have to make choices, to join the change journey or not.

Symbal helps businesses to make intentional change to reach its destination. We help you to start and complete the change circle by engaging people. We focus on how to engage your people, accelerate the movement, and support you to move quickly through change.

Our toolbox contains, communication and learning that fuel people with energy, motivation and new skills to adapt in the best possible way, for your business and for them as individuals.

Step 1. Prepare for change

Owners of the change initiative assess themselves, internal ambassadors and target groups. The aim is to make sure everyone working to drive the change, shares a common understanding of the objectives and of the target groups’ readiness for change.

Symbal provide change readiness analysis, change communication strategies, creative concepts and change communication plans.

Besides this we also can provide the holistic view on how a change circle connects to other changes circles and dimensions in the business. We do this with the Clearvision methodology.

Step 2. Awareness

This is where the change circle starts for your target groups. By default, people are passive when it comes to changing what they’re familiar with. It’s vital to get off to a strong start. You’ll need to pluck the right strings with messages that inspire and encourage on an emotional level if you want to get people to take action.

Symbal ensure your messages shine and your vision comes to life. We create communication that makes your audience aware of what the future holds and why it’s the right path. Storytelling from the heart is key to establishing trust. With clarity, honesty and compelling goals, your audience will be won over and eager to see what comes next.

Step 3. Interest

Now you have people actively engaged with the initiative. They want to understand how the change affects them. To keep things moving in the right direction, you need to demonstrate your own engagement by actively listening, leading and taking initiatives that create dialogue.

Symbal provide the means for managing the expectations and questions of the target group. We prepare structured dialogue tools and communication that have a positive impact on attitudes while minimizing rumours and misunderstandings. People must understand and believe in what they have to gain (and lose) before they buy into the next step.

Step 4. Trial

People want to understand what the change really means in practice: “What do I have to do?” and “What knowledge do I need?”

The best way to create learning that sticks is to invite them to apply the new information in a relevant and realistic context. When they can relate back to their own situation, embracing change becomes much easier.

Symbal provides various methods and tools for learning on the learner’s terms. After all, learning how to use industrial equipment is an altogether different beast than learning how to implement customer insights in decision-making. The learning tools we develop include self-study, classroom training sessions, and much more.

Step 5: Adoption

Unfortunately, many initiatives end with a training session and many businesses simply expect compliance. They fail to address the adoption phase where learning becomes sustained action.

In reality, this is the most difficult task in the entire process. Each and every person in the target group has to actually change his or her behaviour. It’s in our nature to resist change. It takes hard work on several levels – individually, as a group and as a company.

Symbal provides means that enable you to follow and encourage positive behavioural development. Communication that encourages change and celebrates progress is critical in empowering people to change – for real and for good.

It is important management have the tools to adapt when reality kicks in. That’s why we also provide a method to survey and analyse the initiative over time.