Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Change managementLatest NewsHR strategyLeadershipWorkplace culture

Former BBC people director: ‘Successful change starts with inner stillness’

by Ashleigh Webber 14 Feb 2020
by Ashleigh Webber 14 Feb 2020

To lead change successfully, HR leaders need to start with developing “inner stillness” and altering their mindsets around what is happening in the here and now, according to an expert in change management.

Deborah Rowland, founder of consultancy Still Moving and former people director at the BBC, says organisations need to focus more on “how” they deliver a change programme and give it equal attention to what needs changing.

Change management

How can HR be agile in 2020?

Why it’s hard to make change happen in HR

Communicating change: The ‘Scary Six’ personas you need to win over

Speaking at the HRD Summit in Birmingham last week, she said: “When I started in this field almost 30 years ago, the ‘how’ always followed the ‘what’ – we would figure out the strategy, we knew what we needed to do, and then we’d do the change management.

“But in today’s world of ongoing, disruptive and interconnected transformation, where really the answers to the ‘what’ are not as clear anymore, I contend that the only thing you can do is pay attention to the ‘how’. The ‘how’ is your competitive advantage.”

In order to avoid repeating routines that no longer work for the organisation, she said those leading change must shift their personal attitudes and alter the way they approached parts of their role.

“Half the reason why big change succeeds or fails is down to whether or not your leaders can tune into and regulate their inner world and their mental and emotional response to what they experience,” said Rowland.

“Sometimes we can’t change our experience, but we can change our response to an experience. Great change leaders measure what’s going on inside and regulate that before they try to regulate what’s going on on the outside.”

She gave the example of how she approached a risk committee meeting for a relocation project she worked on while people director at the BBC: “I didn’t want to do the meeting and, beforehand, I felt it would be boring and that it would really not get anywhere. My instinct was to change the process and change who would be in the room. But I decided to experiment with changing my inner world first.

“I went to the meeting with curiosity, with compassion, with open-mindedness. It was at the same time, same day, same people, but the meeting went like magic. All I had changed was my inner mental and emotional state. We all know from brain science that emotions are contagious, so what’s going on for you and how you approach things will be instantly felt by other people.”

Developing processes that help cultivate these behaviours in leaders was important, she added.

Big change exercises also need to focus on encouraging “movement, not action”, she said. Taking action can involve “being very busy with activities…but still stuck in routines”, whereas she defined movement as “a genuine transformation to a different place”.

“I define action as the unconscious repetition of past routine. You’re imagining you’re changing things, but actually you’re using old routines to get to new places,” she explained.

Rowland said an organisation she worked with held a leadership conference which aimed to encourage quicker, decentralised-decision making and reduce the hierarchy of power. However, it reserved the front row for the leadership team, which she suggested contradicted the changes it had hoped to make.

“For me, the punchline in trying to get some movement and not just repeating the unconscious is raising the levels of consciousness, or system awareness – can you see your routines? Do you notice what’s there? A lot of change is planning the future, rather than noticing what’s here.”

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

She gave HR leaders a “to be list” designed to help them drive lasting and transformational change, which included:

  • the capacity to have “present-moment attention”
  • the ability to be intentional in their response to situations
  • to have “systemic awareness” − the ability to recognise that decisions have implications on a wider scale
  • not judging people at face value.

Change management opportunities on Personnel Today

Browse more Change management jobs

Ashleigh Webber

Ashleigh is a former editor of OHW+ and former HR and wellbeing editor at Personnel Today. Ashleigh's areas of interest include employee health and wellbeing, equality and inclusion and skills development. She has hosted many webinars for Personnel Today, on topics including employee retention, financial wellbeing and menopause support.

previous post
Why is HR hiding from tech investment?
next post
JCB cuts workers’ hours as coronavirus hits supply chain

You may also like

Four ways HR can maintain trust in uncertain...

23 Apr 2025

Birmingham bin strikes: major incident declared

1 Apr 2025

Employee engagement: Growing disconnect between effort and recognition,...

13 Mar 2025

Five years on: how has work changed since...

12 Mar 2025

Gartner’s nine HR predictions for 2025

16 Jan 2025

Josh Bersin: how AI will shift the HR...

23 Dec 2024

Stop assuming people are resistant to change

21 Nov 2024

IMI carries off Change Management Award 2024

20 Nov 2024

What do mergers mean for people management?

8 Oct 2024

How HR can build a future-ready workforce amid...

24 Sep 2024

  • 2025 Employee Communications Report PROMOTED | HR and leadership...Read more
  • The Majority of Employees Have Their Eyes on Their Next Move PROMOTED | A staggering 65%...Read more
  • Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar) WEBINAR | In today’s fast-paced...Read more
  • Self-Leadership: The Key to Successful Organisations PROMOTED | Eletive is helping businesses...Read more
  • Retaining Female Talent: Four Ways to Reduce Workplace Drop Out PROMOTED | International Women’s Day...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+