nk it must be hard. But you and I know it isn’t.

On change projects you are upsetting the norm in the culture, so it is important to keep as much stability as you can in the form of trust. By that I mean the trust that exists between leaders and the ‘subjects of the change’ as human resources is so ready to call the people impacted. Trust is the direct result of making and keeping commitments and when you do that makes you a person of integrity.

In the example I above, the one where the Direc

Imagine sitting in an HR Managers office, a Director of Human Resources discussing a change project gone bad and he tells you, “I’m glad I travel, I hate people coming in to my office.” That actually happened on one project and the guy worked for a big, glamour Company and was in charge of a large division of the outfit. As a partner of mine said when I was relating the story, “He must be the Director of Non-Human Resources.

Yet I see it everywhere I go. In the case above the change was major, the moving of the headquarters to another site a world away. The subjects of the change were long tenured employees who loved the company and their jobs. It was being moved just like the recent Halliburton announcement of going from Houston to Dubai to save money on taxes. This was similar.

Now when I come in my work is to get people at this point to move on with their lives. I tell them that ‘it is what it is’. And that’s true, ‘it is what it is’. The place is moving regardless of how you or I feel about it, or whether they did a good job of handling the communications, which they rarely do. But this case hammered home a point that I see on every change project … leaders lose their integrity by failing to keep their word and insult the intelligence of their workers.

When I go in to help the people ‘move on’ the first thing I hear is “You can’t trust these people, they have no integrity”. So I listen. What do I find? It’s all pretty simple, you can’t trust these people. You say come on Ed they aren’t all liars. No, they aren’t, they just use situational truth instead of being straight up and honest to the point of if you don’t know the answers to some questions you simple say so.

As Stephen Covey so eloquently put it in his outstanding book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People … your words must match your deeds. To have trust you make a commitment and you keep it. Make it, keep it. That’s a person of integrity. Simple? Apparently not. So few leaders actually do it that I can only think it must be hard. But you and I know it isn’t.

On change projects you are upsetting the norm in the culture, so it is important to keep as much stability as you can in the form of trust. By that I mean the trust that exists between leaders and the ‘subjects of the change’ as human resources is so ready to call the people impacted. Trust is the direct result of making and keeping commitments and when you do that makes you a person of integrity.

In the example I above, the one where the Direct

moving of the headquarters to another site a world away. The subjects of the change were long tenured employees who loved the company and their jobs. It was being moved just like the recent Halliburton announcement of going from Houston to Dubai to save money on taxes. This was similar.

Now when I come in my work is to get people at this point to move on with their lives. I tell them that ‘it is what it is’. And that’s true, ‘it is what it is’. The place is moving regardless of how you or I feel about it, or whether they did a good job of handling the communications, which they rarely do. But this case hammered home a point that I see on every change project … leaders lose their integrity by failing to keep their word and insult the intelligence of their workers.

When I go in to help the people ‘move on’ the first thing I hear is “You can’t trust these people, they have no integrity”. So I listen. What do I find? It’s all pretty simple, you can’t trust these people. You say come on Ed they aren’t all liars. No, they aren’t, they just use situational truth instead of being straight up and honest to the point of if you don’t know the answers to some questions you simple say so.

As Stephen Covey so eloquently put it in his outstanding book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People … your words must match your deeds. To have trust you make a commitment and you keep it. Make it, keep it. That’s a person of integrity. Simple? Apparently not. So few leaders actually do it that I can only think it must be hard. But you and I know it isn’t.

On change projects you are upsetting the norm in the culture, so it is important to keep as much stability as you can in the form of trust. By that I mean the trust that exists between leaders and the ‘subjects of the change’ as human resources is so ready to call the people impacted. Trust is the direct result of making and keeping commitments and when you do that makes you a person of integrity.

In the example I above, the one where the Direc

ut it, or whether they did a good job of handling the communications, which they rarely do. But this case hammered home a point that I see on every change project … leaders lose their integrity by failing to keep their word and insult the intelligence of their workers.

When I go in to help the people ‘move on’ the first thing I hear is “You can’t trust these people, they have no integrity”. So I listen. What do I find? It’s all pretty simple, you can’t trust these people. You say come on Ed they aren’t all liars. No, they aren’t, they just use situational truth instead of being straight up and honest to the point of if you don’t know the answers to some questions you simple say so.

As Stephen Covey so eloquently put it in his outstanding book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People … your words must match your deeds. To have trust you make a commitment and you keep it. Make it, keep it. That’s a person of integrity. Simple? Apparently not. So few leaders actually do it that I can only think it must be hard. But you and I know it isn’t.

On change projects you are upsetting the norm in the culture, so it is important to keep as much stability as you can in the form of trust. By that I mean the trust that exists between leaders and the ‘subjects of the change’ as human resources is so ready to call the people impacted. Trust is the direct result of making and keeping commitments and when you do that makes you a person of integrity.

In the example I above, the one where the Direc

en’t all liars. No, they aren’t, they just use situational truth instead of being straight up and honest to the point of if you don’t know the answers to some questions you simple say so.

As Stephen Covey so eloquently put it in his outstanding book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People … your words must match your deeds. To have trust you make a commitment and you keep it. Make it, keep it. That’s a person of integrity. Simple? Apparently not. So few leaders actually do it that I can only think it must be hard. But you and I know it isn’t.

On change projects you are upsetting the norm in the culture, so it is important to keep as much stability as you can in the form of trust. By that I mean the trust that exists between leaders and the ‘subjects of the change’ as human resources is so ready to call the people impacted. Trust is the direct result of making and keeping commitments and when you do that makes you a person of integrity.

In the example I above, the one where the Direc

nk it must be hard. But you and I know it isn’t.

On change projects you are upsetting the norm in the culture, so it is important to keep as much stability as you can in the form of trust. By that I mean the trust that exists between leaders and the ‘subjects of the change’ as human resources is so ready to call the people impacted. Trust is the direct result of making and keeping commitments and when you do that makes you a person of integrity.

In the example I above, the one where the Director of Non-Human Resources didn’t want people coming into his office, we can predict the trust that exists in that organization with one word – zero! You see words must match deeds, anything less and you have no integrity. Let me tell you how their change came down.

They announced the changes, headquarters moving, and told the folks who were losing their jobs they would pay them a bonus if they stayed through the end of the transition period and that they would help them get jobs in the larger organization which had offices nearby, actually several offices. Now all that’s good, right? Then for nine months they fed them pure BS with literally no information about their replacements, when their jobs would end and on-and-on.

Can you imagine the unrest in the organization at this point? No information is worse than standing up and saying ‘I don’t know’. The people lived in a vacuum and when you allow that to happen rumors fill the space and it is all bad after that. Leaders needed to keep their word and have individual transition plans for each person but instead kept telling them either nothing or wondering amongst themselves why these ungrateful people weren’t happy with having a retention bonus to stay. They also had problems with people being recruited by other divisions in the larger company and being told ‘hands off’, we’re not ready to let them go’. All the while the clock was ticking from the employee’s point of view.

Leaders of change, well all leaders really, need to insure that their words match their deeds. They need to insure that they do what they say and are people of integrity. They need to make commitments and keep them. They need to be people of trust and integrity. The people need to be able to look up to their leaders and know that what they say equals what they actually do. Anything less than that and trust, along with the success of your change project, goes down the drain and cynicism spirals out of control.