I had breakfast with a good friend the other day. We were talking about how to effectively lead through change in a business. It could be any kind of change. Change in culture, personnel, whatever.

It was during this conversation that I was reminded of the most crucial move you must make when implementing change. . .

Make it physical!

As a leader if you really want to make your point — A lasting point that your team just isn’t going to hear but experience — then you MUST physically change the environment. People need to look around and see that things are different.

One of the best examples of this truth came during a difficult time at my former company. We had some significant people make some bad decisions and, as a result, needed to let them go. It was painful. These people would be missed and things would certainly be different without them.

We walked into our weekly staff meeting as we have hundreds of times before but this time all the chairs were turned the opposite way. I promise you, it was like a scene from the movie The Day After. People were just wandering around bumping into each other like zombies. Every week, everyone walked in and sat in pretty much the same seat and now it felt as if we didn’t know what to do. It was so different. It felt so weird.

Eventually everyone found a seat and we started our meeting. Our leader started the meeting off by saying, “it feels weird in here doesn’t it? it’s uncomfortable isn’t it?” Of course, everyone agreed and he went on to say, “That’s b/c it is different today. It is uncomfortable today. Things are different today than they were yesterday b/c some really good people who were here yesterday are no longer here.”

Brilliant. He was making the point not just with his words but with a physical change to the environment that things were uncomfortable. He let that sink in and then proceeded to lead us through that change going forward. It’s a lesson I’ll never forget.

If you’re going to change things up then make sure your people experience that change.

***Change can be memorable and positive or sometimes it can just be irritating and uneventful. What has your experience with change been?