Creating an environment where employees genuinely feel engaged and involved, where there is a sense of collective responsibility is key to success.

An engaged manager that has a clear focus, and vision will create a positive atmosphere where their teams feel valued and able to contribute.

Have Your Say is a simple technique that captures how you feel and the organisation’s ability to understand issues affecting you. The results help to strengthen the fabric of the organisation and help shape future ways of working. Alternatively – use the Snowball Exercise to elicit information from people anonymously that they might not otherwise feel comfortable sharing.

See Snowball Exercise

The freedom to voice ideas and to harness innovation is key to the future success of the organisation, this can be achieved during weekly team stand ups – taking five minutes each Monday to discuss ‘what you did last week, what you are doing this week, and identifying the blockers’ can be one way of maintaining dialogue and supporting each other.

See Mad, Sad, Glad Exercise

Employee re-engagement is particularly important when we face new challenges and frustrations. Consider using speedy problem solving in team meetings to discuss issues and develop joint solutions. See top tips for speedy problem solving.

Remembering to say thank you can increase the likelihood of a person’s willingness to help again in the future by 100%.

By acknowledging concerns in team meetings and during 1:1s we can have positive conversations.

See One-to-One Meeting Tool

Feedback is valuable from quarterly performance reviews to 1:1s and team meetings – weekly and daily feedback has it’s place too.

See Providing Feedback Tool

Take effective ideas from outside your own organisation and involve external partners. Learn from other teams how they managed their change effectively. Engage with both staff and their trade unions – early and regularly.

See Consultation Guidance Tool

Be honest about the reason for change – irrespective of how painful that could be. Be honest if you don’t know an answer – get back to them.

Fisher curve – ask people where they are on the journey and understand that not everyone is in the same place. Understand and acknowledge how people feel – put yourself in their position.

See Fisher’s Change Curve

Discourage a ‘What’s in it for me?’ attitude. Manage the rumor mill – get feedback, give answers.

See Assertiveness Tool

Focus on what motivates staff – their engagement is a pre-requisite – keep giving opportunities for people to express their views and listen to them carefully. Remember to get staff opinion before change, not after.

See 3 Level Questioning Technique

Be positive, flexible, and consistent and keep an open dialogue and communication. Share staff stories and help people to contribute to vision and change. Build trust – there can be no hidden agendas.

Organise drop-in sessions with HR (Human Resources) to help teams understand the organisational change process – what will happen to jobs, redeployment.

Help the workforce to make decisions from an informed point of view. Continuous improvement, communications and engagement are key factors.

See Communications Planning Tool

Remember this is not just about an end product. It’s about learning and capturing culture too.

Discover, Define, Design and Deliver uncovering options, ideas and possibilities.

See Generate Options Tools

Build a rich understanding of the problem you’re tackling – look around at the wider picture, delve deeper and get lots of different perspectives. The evidence that you gather via joint diagnosis will be crucial in determining whether there is a need to change and what that change will look like.

See Joint Diagnosis (Fact Find)

Speak and more importantly listen to frontline staff and anyone affected by the problem you are tackling.

Draw more it helps you see a problem differently and by visualising something you can also build a shared understanding of a problem or concept.

Tell stories, use drawings and visuals to show findings and deep understanding.

Engaging the front line is key.

Take people on the journey to alleviate the fear factor.

See Fisher’s Change Curve

Spot opportunities during your day job you might spot things that don’t work properly and can be improved, or think of a really elegant solution which you want to try.

See Generate Options Tools

Set yourself the challenge of spotting and photographing ten different bits of design that you think could be improved, it could be a form you have to fill in or a service being delivered. Keep a communal log of ideas individually or in your team and talk through during team meetings – consider using the Sticky Dots Method to help prioritise.

See Sticky Dots Tool

Invite a critical friend, someone elsewhere in the organisation, to challenge and offer support and fresh thinking.

Share knowledge and tell stories about your ideas.

Set out your approach – how your idea will work – think about your target users and their needs.

See Stakeholder Analysis Tool

Got an idea – what do you need to make it happen – people, resources and where might they come from?

See Planning Tools

Think creatively how could you get stuff for free – who might you partner with – could you trade in kind?

See Collaborative Outcomes Tool

How will you make people aware of your idea and what’s the incentive for it to be used?

See Key Message Builder Tool

Don’t criticise at this level – it curbs enthusiasm and can demotivate.

Go for quantity – worry about choosing the best ideas later.

See Morphological Analysis Tool

Have wild ideas and encourage the team not to hold-back – every idea is valid.

See Brainstorming Tool

Imagine you have no money and people are your only resource – you might be surprised in what can actually be achieved.

Think of different ways to cause a problem and how to reverse them – similar to a technique called Scenario Planning.

See Scenario Planning Tool

How might the service, community and customer look in the year 2050?

Think about new ways of working by hosting quick thought showers within your teams: 5 minutes to identify what you did last week, what you are doing this week and what help do you need to get the job done.

Try approaching the challenges you have in a new way – step inside the shoes of the customer.

See Customer Feedback Tool