When organizational change management is done well, employees are ready, willing and able to embrace change with smiles, energy and a quantifiable improvement in business outcomes.

Imagine a dedicated team of change agents working tirelessly to build messaging, timelines, newsletters and presentations. They’ve traveled to town halls and team meetings, posted updates on office monitors and bathroom stalls, and maybe even thrown in balloons, glitter and pizza to generate excitement. But what if, despite all effort, the message still hasn’t fully reached your team?

People are complex — wonderful, illogical and emotional. Put two or more people in a room, and you’ve got incredible dynamics. While this is fascinating from an organizational science perspective, it can be challenging for both those experiencing the change and those leading it.

This article offers practical strategies to help you guide your team through uncertainty and change.

Strategy 1: Practice Empathy

One strategy for maintaining a strong team is to understand their feelings and emotional reactions to a challenging environment. It’s important to remember that they aren’t only dealing with changes in their roles, customer portfolios or leadership. They’re also managing the ongoing effects of COVID on work and family life, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), shifting political landscapes and possibly last year’s new HR or finance platform program — especially if it wasn’t a smooth transition. Even small changes can trigger strong reactions due to the accumulated stress of past experiences.

3 Ways to Build Empathy With Your Team

1. Practice active listening: Pause and focus on what your team is saying, especially in individual conversations. Ask clarifying questions and dig deeper to fully understand their points. Listen to understand, not just to respond (this can be difficult if you’re out of practice). Ask for confirmation that you’ve understood their points and ask them to tell you more about it. This isn’t hard, but it’s a habit that sometimes gets lost in the rush of daily tasks and urgent deadlines.

2. Be present: In virtual meetings, it’s easy to feel invisible. The person on the other side of the screen can tell when you’re distracted or multitasking. If you’re not using video, turn it on so they know you are present. If your video is on, avoid typing or looking at another screen or your phone. Build stronger relationships and empathy by giving your full attention when you’re with your team.

3. Show vulnerability: Share your own experiences when appropriate to connect with your team’s experiences and the challenges they may be facing. But always prioritize active listening. Don’t rush to tell your own story before fully exploring theirs.

Strategy 2: Focus on Trust

Remember, trust goes both ways — just because you trust someone does not mean that they trust you — it’s not automatically reciprocal, so you must focus on it with both lenses, especially when considering how an employee navigates through change. If they have low trust in you, that will impact their perspective on the change being “pushed” on them versus how they will respond if they have a high level of trust.

David Maister, in “The Trusted Advisor,” proposed that trust is an equation where reliability, credibility and intimacy add up to trust, which is then degraded by self-orientation.

• Credibility: Building your skills and knowledge within a specific domain or practice.
• Reliability: How dependable you are. Do what you say you’re going to do when you say you’re going to do it.
• Intimacy: The level of comfort and safety people around you have when sharing information with you. It’s about developing understanding and relationships, and ensuring people feel secure with you.
• Self-Orientation: Where your focus is. When you interact with someone whose focus is on themselves, it creates an automatic barrier to building trust.

Try this: Think about someone with whom you’d like to have a better work relationship. Take each element of the trust equation and write down: On a scale of 1-10, how would the other person score you? How would they score your credibility? Reliability? Intimacy? Based on recent interactions, how would they score your self-orientation? (1 being about their needs, 10 being about your needs). For anything you scored lower than a 9, write a list of clear actions you can take to improve that element and make a goal of doing it this week.

Strategy 3: Try a Simpler Metaphor

You may be familiar with the grief model used to navigate change, often referred to as the “Valley of Despair.” A simpler approach to guide you through change is: Honor the past. Celebrate the present. Embrace the future.

In between each of the stages, allow time to process and shift into a neutral space.

In a recent workshop on managing restructuring, senior professionals were asked to identify what they would miss about the old way of working. They listed a range of things and got a little nostalgic. As they listed the good things, they challenged each other: “Well, that actually wasn’t that great,” and “It wasn’t really clear in that model.”

Next, they focused on what is not changing. In the “celebrate the present” and “embrace the future” stages, identifying what remains the same helps shift the focus away from what’s different — and often, the negative aspects of change. The group also listed what they could control and influence, setting aside things they couldn’t control for the moment.

What emerged was a list that not only included the changes but also highlighted positives and areas within their control. This shift in perspective changed the conversation from frustration and helplessness to a renewed focus on what was unchanged. The mood in the room became more upbeat as they focused on what they could control.

Try this: Have team members work on a change that impacts them. Ask them to list what they will miss about the old way of working and encourage them to share stories related to it. Then, shift the focus by asking them to make a list of what’s not changing and the potential benefits of those aspects. Finally, have them list what they can directly control and what they can influence.

Strategy 4: Keep Your Why at the Center

Research on resilience shows that resilient individuals have a clear sense of “why,” which helps them navigate transitional changes. Think of it as having their own north star. In his book, “Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action,” Simon Sinek emphasizes the importance of identifying the “why” behind our work. When team members are clear on their why, change becomes easier to manage.

As you guide your team through transitions, keep their “why” at the center. Start by answering key questions: What does your team absolutely need to get right? Why? When the why is clear, the “how” often becomes more flexible. It’s usually the “how” that’s impacted by organizational changes.

Try this: Collaborate with your team to create a purpose statement and publish it on your internal team site or in a shared physical space. Ensure it aligns with your broader business goals and values. Keep this purpose as your team’s north star, even as you discuss the elements change that will affect them.

Strategy 5: Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

Marketing follows the “Rule of 7,” which suggests that potential customers need to be exposed to an idea seven times before it influences their purchase decision. Yet, in many organizations, internal changes are often announced once — perhaps in a company newsletter or an all-hands meeting — before teams are expected to implement them. This doesn’t give employees enough time to absorb, internalize and prepare for the change.

Imagine applying the Rule of 7 to your internal communications and aligning it with the strategies above. Your team needs early awareness that change is coming and why. They need time to intellectually and emotionally process the rationale for the change, accept what’s changing and connect it to their sense of purpose.

Change management professionals often say that when leaders feel like they’ve overcommunicated a change, they’ve probably just started to break through to awareness.

As a leader, you may not know all the reasons behind an organizational shift. Even so, your role is to align the change with your team’s purpose and communicate clearly:

• What’s changing.
• Why it’s changing.
• When it’s happening.
• What the impact will be.

Introduce the change, explain what’s changing (and what’s not), and reintroduce the message repeatedly until it’s fully understood.

Try this: Think of a major change that’s coming or recently launched. Review how you communicate with your team — looking at your calendar of meetings, emails or informal hallway chats. Now apply the Rule of 7. Plot out seven touchpoints where you’ll reinforce the message. It may feel repetitive, and your team might even joke that they saw it coming. That’s a good sign — it means you’ve crossed the awareness threshold and can now focus on alignment.

At the end of the day, helping your team adapt to change means keeping them informed, clarifying the impact and actively listening as they move through their own change journey.