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You Can Lead Employees To Change, But You Can’t Make Them Do It
I’ll openly admit that I’m not always the best employee. It all relates to a stubborn streak that I inherited from both my mother’s and father’s sides of the family (though Baileys and Garretts often claim the other is worse). The things is that I like to do things my way. I often bristle if someone tells me what I should do, if they tell me the best way it can be done, if they tell me that my way isn’t going to work. See…telling me just isn’t going to work. I’m just going to have to learn on my own. Sometimes it’s a strength and sometimes it’s a curse. Perhaps that’s why Paul Williams’ recent napkin idea on change resonates with me. He offers this quote from Marty Neumeier:
People do like change.
What they don’t like is being changed.
What I like is the simplicity of this idea. In two sentences, he’s able to clearly define why organizational change initiatives fail. Too often, change initiatives are built in black boxes and then sprung on employees. Executives deliver the news which is laden with directives detailing what we’re doing and how we’re going to do it. Great…now prepare to go down in flames. Why? Because the assumption is that change is a rational process that moves in a linear pattern. But what happens when we consider that change is an emotional process? Usually, fear is the emotion we most often connect with change, but that ignores other emotional responses like excitement, happiness, anger, and frustration. A favorite book of mine that has become a well-thumbed reference for organizational change is The Change Monster by Jeanie Daniel Duck
If you’re in the process of planning (or to the point of implementing) change, here are some questions to ponder:
- What it will take to get your folks ready for the change?
- How can you help make the decision to change their decision rather than your mandate?
- Are you prepared for the emotional responses that are going to arise?
Thinking through the human factors of change will be critical if your plan succeeds or crashes.
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Amen! This is why I don’t use the industry-standard term of “change management.” I think that is really “change enforcement.”(This is one of my chapters in We Have Always Done It That Way) THe second bullet above is the big one. When you give up control, the change part becomes easier (but your mental model about what it means to be in charge gets challenged!).
I agree, Jamie. I think what happens in most cases is an opposite fear reaction from the management side: what happens if this initiative fails? Most change initiatives are viewed as a one-shot deal…if it fails, that’s it. And with so many working parts in the process, it just feels more natural to approach from a total control mindset.
Here’s another thought…most organizations view change like they do relationships, rarely doing what needs to be done to feed them on a daily (or at least more frequent) basis. Building an internal ability to change is integrating it into the corporate culture. It’s about realigning change as a more natural process, not one that feels foreign and constantly awkward.
As I write this, my mind is computing all the different scenarios and I realize that I’m really over-generalizing this. I’m also trying to do it on half a cup of morning coffee. Might also explain my semi-coherent babbling