Leaders must choose their battles

Mining executives must learn to decide which transformational programmes and innovations to pursue and celebrate their successes better if they are to avoid 'change fatigue' among their workforces, according to international management consultant, Proudfoot.

Chris Cann

Head of Aspermont Research & Intelligence

Workers become disengaged when they are asked to embark on multiple change programmes, particularly if unsuccessful (Pixabay)

15 MARCH 201815/03/2018commentsshare

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At a time when leaders need to take countless actions to address opportunities and avoid threats associated with rapid technology evolution and more sophisticated shareholder engagement, employees are inundated with requests or demands to change the environment and processes in which they operate. This inevitably wears down enthusiasm levels for new initiatives among the workforce; a condition some are calling ‘change fatigue'. This condition is compounded by the fact around 70% of transformational programmes fail, creating a circular problem. Natural resources president at Proudfoot, Jon Wylie, said executives had to understand what their overall corporate objectives were and then prioritise or postpone new initiatives accordingly. "You can't try to boil the ocean," he told Mining Journal. "We use the phrase ‘strategic sacrifice' to describe the situation where you don't take on every potentially strong initiative. You have to step back and decide which programmes will best help you join the dots to your end goal and which you will sacrifice to avoid change fatigue.  Wylie said it was difficult to encourage employees to bring new ideas to the table while at the same time telling them their ideas, though strong and worthwhile, were going to be put on the backburner. This was manageable if the overall company objectives had been clearly communicated in the first place. "Those conversations are easier when people understand and are engaged with the big picture," he said. The other management technique - and simpler to execute than effective, organisation-wide communication - was to celebrate properly when these transformation programmes were successful.  "'Change fatigue' is a result of putting in effort and either not being successful or not having your successes celebrated," Wylie said. "If you're having success and that success is celebrated appropriately then you want to do it again." More generally, he said executives focused entirely on technology transformation or transforming stakeholder engagement processes, for example, risked neglecting the opportunity to transform management techniques. This meant overlooking the techniques available to combat ‘change fatigue' was more likely. "Executives do a lot of innovation in operational and technical processes but rarely put that effort into management innovation," Wylie said.  "You need to work to create that volunteerism in the workplace, which is about how we motivate, collaborate, connect, define strategies and make decisions and develop objectives at every level in the business.  "If you can look at your management model as a target of innovation then you stand a better chance of avoiding ‘change fatigue'." Mining Journal will publish its Global Leadership Report in the June quarter this year. This research will tackle the key challenges facing industry leaders and discuss the skills sets needed to be a successful leader in the context of a shifting business environment. The value of this research to our readers will be improved with every industry stakeholder we speak to so please take 5 minutes to complete our Leadership Survey.

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