Challenges created by change
Leaders are struggling to “join the dots” between initiatives and explain what they mean in day-to-day operational terms. The impact is greater pressure on managers and team leaders to interpret the changes they see happening around them in ways that reassure and motivate their teams.
Against this backdrop, the airline recognised that change capability is more than a training issue, it is a strategic, operational and reputational risk.
Reasons for choosing ChangeabilityPro®
Practical, operational delivery
As a low-cost carrier, pulling people out of operations for long training sessions is not realistic. Aircraft must be flying or being serviced. Crew and engineers cannot spend days in classrooms. ChangeabilityPro® is a coaching tool that enables managers to ask questions about how to manage change when they need answers.
Clarity and structure
Without clarity of expectation, it was difficult for base/airport managers to appreciate what effective change leadership looks like, so it was difficult for capability to be built in a consistent way. ChangeabilityPro® provides simple guidance on the roles and responsibilities specific to making change happen.
Focus on measurable difference
Identification of benefits for specific changes are useful for gaining authorisation and commitment from executive leaders but these high-level strategic benefits do not translate to motivation at the local level. The do not motivate local staff who are the ones who need to change their ways of working. ChangeabilityPro® contains many techniques for helping managers identify and describe benefits that are meaningful to their teams.
Key areas of success
Training at the Point of Need
Traditional training windows followed by long gaps were ineffective. People returned to operations and forgot the content. ChangeabilityPro® content is delivered in short, focused bursts aligned to real change activity. Learners decide when they want to access the content, to support a task that they are unsure how to perform. We often see spikes in use connected to the times for weekly team meetings, where leaders are looking for their AI Coach to support them with ideas about how to announce change, how to persuade team members of the benefits and the reasons to get involved. Managers ensure their learning is relevant, simple and immediately usable because they are specifying what they want help with and when.
Strengthening People Leadership
With the volume of change taking place across the organisation, it is clear that change capability cannot not be separated from wider leadership capability. Pockets of strong leadership existed, especially in base/airports that had experienced significant change. But performance was inconsistent.
ChangeabilityPro® embedded change skills within everyday leadership behaviours. Instead of positioning change as a specialist add-on, it was treated as part of being a competent leader. This raised the base/airportline capability across the network.
Defining Expectations for Managers
Base/airport managers are the primary channel through which change reaches cabin crew. However, expectations of their leadership role in an environment of multiple, simultaneous change were unclear and variable.
Building a capability for change has clarified:
- What good people leadership looks like.
- What effective change conversations sound like.
- How base/airport managers create motivation and excitement and generate participation in changes rather than simply passing on messages
Results Achieved
The organisation is seeing early but meaningful results, which align to the experience of other clients of the ChangeabilityPro platform:
Increased confidence in ability to manage changes creates earlier volunteerism to participate; quicker to action generates earlier examples that persuade others to get involved; each change generates less stress because managers know what steps to take and what techniques to use to explain the changes to their team and to engage their team in adopting new ways of working
Improved clarity for base managers about their role as change agents and the vital nature of this leadership skill and its contribution to their career development path
More consistent communication, with clearer links drawn between the changes, ensuring that teams do not feel that the changes are disconnected from one other, reducing the risk that staff feel that one change cancels out another change
Practical, operational delivery
As a low-cost carrier, pulling people out of operations for long training sessions is not realistic. Aircraft must be flying or being serviced. Crew and engineers cannot spend days in classrooms. ChangeabilityPro® is a coaching tool that enables managers to ask questions about how to manage change when they need answers. There is no need to book formal training courses and no time away from daily responsibilities.