Leader’s College

If you’re working, you’re in the middle of a change effort: goals change, priorities change, processes change, roles change…

The familiar cliché claims that “people resist change.” But that’s not accurate. Pull back the curtain on this over-worn folk wisdom and take a look at the change management dynamic with fresh eyes.

Sure, most people don’t rush to “embrace” change. But that’s true for two reasons:

1. People change at different rates.

2. Most of us are skeptical of change because we don’t know what will happen to us when the change comes. Taking a wary stance toward change means we are exhibiting a perfectly normal, completely understandable, and entirely justifiable set of self-protection behaviors.

Note that being skeptical or assuming an attitude of assure me toward impending change is very different from resisting change. Only a very small percentage of people actually resist change — in the sense of opposing it.

It’s a safe bet that most of your colleagues will eventually adopt changes specified by your organization, and adjust to them more slowly than what you might want. Plodding along and reluctance (forms of passiveness) are not the same thing as resistance (an active form of opposition).

Often a slow rate of change by individuals is rooted in their genuine uncertainty about the changes swirling around them. Or their personal temperaments. Slowness to adopt new methods is innate in about 40-percent of the population who like predictability and certainty in their lives (ritual and habit protect one from anxiety).

Because managers tend not to be a patient lot, they try to force a fast-forward change adoption rate.

What’s the typical impatient—and ineffective—managerial response? Hammering people with edicts and implied threats (a “burning platform” message strategy — no matter how positively it is couched — essentially is a threat designed to motivate by fear).  So they communicate messages such as: You’d better get with it or get left behind. Get on board before the train leaves the station. If you’re not part of the new solution, you’re part of the problem… Would any of those motivational phrases inspire you? Or scare you?

When people are scared, they withdraw or defend. Neither of those are change-positive behaviors.

Rather than putting your reluctant colleagues on the defensive, engage them. How? By conversing with them and asking questions to draw them into a meaningful conversation about your change effort.

Here are some questions to further a dialog about your change initiative:

• What do you know about the reasons we’re making these changes?
  
  
• In light of these new circumstances, what is your understanding of how your job needs to change?
  
  
• What are your feelings about that?
  
  
• What suggestions do you have?
  
  
• What do you need from me to help you be effective in this new environment? What can I do to help this change process be as smooth and comfortable for you as possible?

Note that all these questions are open-ended. They beg for a meaningful exchange; they open the door for your associates to give you useful information about their personal perspectives.

In engaging in such conversations, you might learn that people misunderstand the reasons for the change initiatives. Or that they misconceive the potential impact. Or have reservations that are easily addressed.

Remember, in almost every change effort there are misunderstandings, misconceptions and outright distortions that circulate through the rumor mill. Unless you a) find out what these are, and b) address them directly, people will act in accord with these false premises. And waste a whole lot of time and energy unnecessarily.

If there’s one meaningful change you can make that will have lasting impact, it’s to involve your associates in conversations that will change the way you manage — and they implement — change.