Change? You can't make me!

It’s a truism to say that you can’t make anyone do what they don’t want to do. The technology truism says you can’t make people implement anything they don’t want to implement. Asking or telling people to do something or to change their behaviours and habits simply doesn’t work. In order for genuine, beneficial, lasting change to take place people need to know, “what’s in it for me?”  They need a reason to believe the change is worth all the effort.

Because change is about beliefs and values, it fails when it only takes place – as it does in most companies – on a process level. It’s all well and good knowing how A will work with B and how C will produce D – but being familiar with the intricacies of the process will never hit the emotional notes needed to get people truly committed to change (see fig 1). Many of those responsible for communicating and effecting change concentrate on the process because that’s where their skills and, consequently, their comfort levels lie. Talking about beliefs and understanding involves a gear shift that is often just too uncomfortable a stretch.
 
Yet the benefits of concentrating on the emotional requirement of change are sure and immediate. To neglect this is to risk a successful outcome. Without belief or engagement, change doesn’t happen and – on the contrary – people will naturally behave in a counter productive way. This is when you will often hear people complaining, “he/she’s a ‘terrorist’“, towards the change process.

It follows, then, that the role of your average IT professional goes much further than articulating change: it’s about explaining the benefits. I say ‘explain’ rather than the more popular ‘sell’ because ‘sell’ assumes a level of hype and artifice that doesn’t necessarily go hand-in-hand with engendering belief. The popular trend towards ‘IT marketing’ often puts form over function and people will not change their behaviours simply by being instructed to do so by a memo or a clever poster.

It’s another truism to say that people will make the best choice available to them at any given time. If a certain behaviour will make them better off, they will adopt it. Moreover, by understanding the intrinsic beliefs and motivations of an individual, you can more accurately anticipate how they are likely to react when presented with a set of choices.

Don’t assume that what’s best for the organisation is best for the individual. You need to appeal on an individual level, encouraging people to see the direct impact/benefit for them as an individual or tight team, so they make the decision to make the change. To do this you need to segment your audiences. What’s sauce for the goose almost certainly won’t be for the gander. Different triggers will operate for different audiences, so take time to understand exactly what drives each audience and communicate the benefits that will result from the desired change.

It’s a simple thing but it’s worth remembering that teams are made up of a collection of individuals, and organisations are made up of a collection of teams. If you can push the right buttons on an individual level, it stands to reason that the organisation as a whole will accumulate the benefit(s). If, however, the culture of the organisation is such that it exerts a high level of pressure on individuals to deliver their own specific objectives, you can bet that those individuals will be less willing and able to embrace a change that doesn’t work for them on a similarly direct, personal level.

Failure to understand the power of beliefs will not only demotivate your workforce and result in cynicism – it will ultimately slow down the change process. It’s the classic tortoise and hare scenario: implement quickly without considering individual needs and desires first and you’ll take much longer to reach full adoption – if ever.

One final piece of food for thought. Large organisations are often envious of their smaller, more nimble and entrepreneurial competitors who boast significantly better profitability per employee because they can implement change much faster than they can. But, the truth of the matter is that smaller organisations tend to have more basic IT and can consequently turn ‘on a sixpence’. The moral of the story? The larger you are; the more cumbersome and complicated change gets.

If you’d like to explore how you can improve your ability to make change happen with your team, contact Trevor Meadows now on 01647 221360.