Leading Your Team Through a Major Business Change
June 5, 2026 
“Leading Your Team Through a Major Change in Your Family Business.” | Ferguson Alliance
As a business leader, you’ll face times when you need to lead your team through a major change — whether it’s a transition of leadership, implementation of a new software platform, expansion into new markets, products, or services, or something you can’t even imagine today.
One place to start is considering your business culture.
How Culture Affects Change Management
Culture is essential for business change management. Companies that build a culture of innovation and experimentation will be most successful when it comes to implementing meaningful change.
In this type of culture, the organization is constantly stretching and developing its change muscles. In a culture that supports change, experimentation, and trying to do the work better are the norm. Team members know how to ask questions, they know to expect hiccups with new initiatives, and they’re emotionally equipped to deal with any barriers that arise. Additionally, they also tend to be more patient with the change process and dedicated to getting it right.
Creating and supporting an overall culture that’s accepting of change builds a strong foundation to work with when you need to initiate major change projects.
Tips for Effectively Managing a Major Change
As you begin a major change initiative, you may find the following steps helpful:
Start with a Gut Check
First and foremost, do a gut check.
Think about past change initiatives and how they went. Additionally, be honest with yourself and remember, you won’t do yourself any favors by ignoring issues from the very beginning.
Prepare Your Team
The only thing that’s harder for a team to accept than a major change is a major change that’s also a surprise.
Ideally, well in advance of any major change, you’ll discuss options and gather feedback from all levels of your team. The more time your team has to get their heads around a coming change, the better they’ll be able to help. This phase might even include doing a trial run of a small change initiative as a test to see how your team responds, which can help you identify challenges in areas like communication, teamwork, and problem solving.
Lay out the path as far and as clearly as you can to reduce false assumptions and make sure people know what to expect.
Involve Your Team in Implementation
No one likes to have change handed down to them.
When you’ve identified the need for change, involve your team in shaping the best way to make it happen. As much as you can, get insight from those who are closest to the day-to-day work so you can understand what the coming change means for them.
Accentuate the Why
It’s easy for people to get mired in the disruption that accompanies any major change. However, if you help them understand the why behind the change, it may be easier to accept.
Paint a vivid picture for your team of what your success can look like once the change is made. In some cases, it might be just as valuable to paint a vivid portrait of what your business will miss out on if you don’t implement a proposed change.
Above all, as you are talking and preparing the team for change, take time to acknowledge the challenges the organization faces and why the change can be good.
For the rest of the steps on effectively managing a major business change, please read the original article found on the Ferguson Alliance website.
Subscribe to eNewsletter
