The dogs got me thinking again this week … I am moving house in two weeks and I started the laborious job of packing boxes. This is my third move in eighteen months so my dogs know the drill. Each reacts differently: the boxer is completely chilled, the terrier gets excited and ‘helps’ dropping his toys into the boxes, but the bulldog freaks out. On seeing me packing she fled upstairs where I found her shaking and distressed. I know the new house is going to be brilliant and the dogs will love the massive garden, but they don’t know that and this made my bulldog feel afraid.
Human reaction to change
I linked this to similar human reactions I have recently witnessed at work. I’ve just announced new uniforms for the entire Carew Crew and most of the team were really excited, but a couple of people were totally unsettled and are genuinely worried about the change.
My motivation is to upgrade the clinical uniforms to fashionable jogger style scrubs, and to move the non-clinical crew into a more co-ordinated look whilst retaining their individual styles, but some of the team are worried about how the uniform will suit them and are resistant to change.
This moves me to thinking about how as leaders we manage change.
Leaders mis-managing change
You might remember the company Brewdog being accused of running a toxic workplace back in 2022. I listened to an old interview with the CEO, James Watt, where he was pretty humble and reflective about unintentionally creating workplace toxicity.
Watt spoke about when imposing his vision and standards onto his employees he hadn’t stopped to think about how they might feel about him constantly shifting goal posts, and placing extreme demands on them. This was a huge problem for the employees as their wants and needs were mis-aligned with Watts’.
Leading a dynamic business will necessarily require reactive change as you problem-solve and adapt to overcome challenges … but the million dollar question is how to work as a team to jointly build something magnificent, and not be a leader like Watt with an awesome vision but a dis-engaged team who are beaten into delivering goals they don’t believe in.
The best leaders
I believe the best leaders will have nurtured a devoted team who have bought into the company’s vision and are committed to jointly fulfilling its mission. The whole team would be involved at the earliest stages of ‘change’, formulating the end goals, then engaging in problem-solving and working out how to realise these goals.
The reality …
I try to be an amazing leader, I have developed a strong culture and work hard with the team to ensure they feel valued and empowered to shape the workplace into something they love and are proud of (for example see #5 Kaizen at Carew).
Despite this, the uniform resistance shows me that I can not please everybody all of the time, and that I will, and do, get it wrong. I just don’t want to get it so wrong that my team hates the workplace and thinks it is toxic.
My challenges are also very small – I have a tiny company of less than 15 people, not thousands of employees like Brewdog.
Consequently, as we grow I expect the challenges of managing people will continue to bamboozle me, but I know these challenges will continue to make me a better leader and work harder to shape the best work environment I can for the team.
The next chapter
Carew Dental is on the cusp of enormous change, we are embarking on a 2-year growth programme switching from a principal-led to an associate-led model. We’ll be bringing in new people, a CRM, adopting more AI, and replacing our phone and patient management systems. I have also engaged a coach to help me deep-dive into the business and devise strategies and goals to overhaul everything we do.
Whilst I am buzzing about this project, I am hugely mindful about bringing the team with me. So, I’m following my own advice and getting everybody involved early on. I am listening to what they want and their ideas and we will work together. Thus far, engagement is high and my transparency seems to be valued amongst the team, but how disrupting workflows and processes in everything we do will go down I just don’t know.
I’m thinking to make changes incrementally and to offer a lot of support and training. I figure that jointly finding and then implementing powerful solutions will make working life so much better, and the corollary should be happier people. Time will tell!!!
Oh, and the uniforms …
We go live with these on 08 June. I hope my continued collaboration with the team means everybody will be comfortable and happy, and their residual fears will fall away. I look forward to posting photos of the Carew Crew in their full glory, and hopefully lots of smiling faces 🤞🤞🤞
JOANNA CAREW 
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