November 18, 2008
“But I don’t want to change”
“Why? change is exciting, its innovative, new techniques are used, its more efficient (definitely should be otherwise its a useless expensive exercise), less intensive with new technologies constantly changing the way we can automate things, they are doing it at our competitors, and we should keep up”
See, change is difficult to get across to people, never mind the whole organisation. People don’t want to change, they are afraid of what may happen to their roles, their functions, their ways of working, their 9 to 5 mentality, their performance ratings and subsequent payrises.
Trouble is, when we wake up in the mornings, it’s a changed day, the weather has changed, our personality has changed, we are a day older than yesterday, we change our clothes, our surroundings have changed, and before you know it we have to adapt to that change. So why are we so reluctant?
Change can be viewed as:
- learning change
- personality change
- behavioural change
- cognitive change
- managing change
- humanistic psychology change
In the early 90′s I loved my brand new Motorola brick mobile phone, the one that needed two hands to hold, clip it on your belt and you walked with a limp, battery life of an hour, phone bills to make you weep. Now I have a Nokia E71 smartphone, sleek and slim, with a camera, wifi, GPS, it plays my music for God’s sake. I have adapted to a change in the mobile phone market. I’d look pretty ridiculous walking around with that Motorola brick now, and it probably wouldn’t work anymore because of the frequency bands or network architectures of today.
Simple – we all adapt, maybe slowly at first, to the technological advances or maybe we are forced to adapt due to another change happening elsewhere upstream or downstream.
So how can we help change along?
We must all understand and reduce the anxiety that changes bring to ourselves and others, to our own and others teams, and to our and other organisations. (I say other organisations because there may be suppliers involved, and they would need to understand the tranistion too).
What would happen if your CEO today said to all employees “you must all work 12 hours per day, there will be no extra money paid to you”. (Maybe today isn’t a good example since we are in the midst of a financial crisis, deflation, recession) but let’s imagine all is happy in the world. I bet you’d consider quitting your job, or at least looking around for a new job. Why would you do that? It’s because your CEO ‘bullied’ you and the other employees into a change without showing you any of the benefits or advantages that could be gained. What if the CEO said “you must all work 12 hours a day, with no extra money, but you will have a percentage of the share price when we make our acquisition of ABC plc. I hope to give you all a 25% bonus at Christmas time after our acquisition transition period has settled”. Now you see the whole picture, now you can relate the change in the circumstance as well as the added bonus of money at Christmas time for your efforts in the short term. So you should be feeling more empowered to make a better judgement about your own circumstances.
We sometimes want to see the physical success a change brings, for example, a new Service Desk with new processes brings with it efficient call logging, customer satisfaction, reduced outages and complaints, and after a while the Service Desk operator has more time to undertake training in some other areas. BUT, let’s say the new successes can’t be visualised immediately because during the transition period where staff are being trained in the new process means there are less operators taking more calls per operator, there are more complaints coming through because efficiency has dropped. It’s frustrating to say the least, because your team is not running at 100% efficiency – but it will. This is the transition period that has the potential to make or break both morale and the benefits of the new change in your organisation. Everyone is alert to the fact that anything can go wrong in this timeframe, and there will be the cynics in your organisation who want to see failure because they are the ones who don’t have or understand the vision of change.
As a manager you must remain cool headed and focused throughout. What would happen if a member of your team caught you bad mouthing the new functionality and process? Bad news spreads faster than good news. Weather the initial storm, and have the clear vision to see calmer waters and clearer skies ahead. Pass your vision onto your staff and if need be pull the ‘cynics’ aside and ask them why they think the change is not beneficial, maybe they haven’t understood the process. Mentor them either individually or in a small group, get feedback from them, its not a one sided communication exercise, spend time calmly explaining what the corporate or department vision is until its clear to them. Customer surveys are great exercise tools, but use them wisely and understand why you are collecting the data and for what means. In some cases, organisations promote changes in their organisations with corporate gifts, pens, mugs, flags etc … this highlights to other people and departments that something new is afoot and that it is still ‘business as usual’ but that a change also brings a few teething problems. Keep those teething problems to a minimum though. Produce a small leaflet or news article in the company newsletter or intranet site, make people aware.
Communication is the only tool you have to highlight the benefits of the change, use it wisely and carefully. Make sure that the organisation’s management highlight the transition during board meetings, it shouldn’t be a ‘ram down your throat’ exercise.
After a period of 3 months, conduct a survey and see how your change has been received within your organisation. Also, has the change been beneficial to the business – should be your very first question. Identify where you can make small improvements. Avoid another large change immediately after roll-out, this will cause more confusion, but certainly tweaks here and there should be seen as improvements. Remember continual improvement is a process too, not a daily process but a process that will improve individual and team efficiency, and benefit the organisation on the whole.
IF YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY THE CHANGE IS REQUIRED, HOW CAN YOU EXPECT YOUR STAFF AND ORGANISATION TO UNDERSTAND THE BENEFITS !
I shall write more on this subject at a later date.
