Readiness and Resistance.
Every systematic approach to making large-scale change usually talks about these two factors.
Readiness refers to whether or not the people who will be involved are prepared for the changes that are coming.
Resistance refers to the assumption that many people will balk at doing the "new" thing because it is different.
Here are some real-life, practical tips accompanied by some semi-deep thoughts:
If you, as a leader, have done a thorough job of explaining your organization's situation and why it is critical to do specific things differently, you will enable readiness and reduce resistance before it even starts.
Why? Because the human condition simply demands a reason for doing something differently. Until you answer the "Why?" question satisfactorily, forget about trying to get to the "What." (See, I just did it).
Readiness is all about understanding and acceptance. Yes, both of those. You can understand something intellectually but you need a certain amount of acceptance to want to act on your understanding.
What to do: When a change is needed, start talking about the situation and what you think needs to happen differently. Engage other people in the discussion. Tell them what you think ought to happen. Ask them what they think could be done. Tell managers to talk with their people about the situation.
Why? (See, I am trying to model this thing). When the decision to make the change finally happens, it's not a surprise. Save surprises for a significant birthday.
Steve's story about "surveying for readiness."
One of my Utility clients hired a firm that specialized in Change Management to come in and honcho the process. The system made sense on paper. It made no sense when it was applied. The first step in the process was a company-wide, pencil and paper assessment of individuals' "readiness for change." Yeah, think about this. A gizillion people answered questions--with obvious organizational and psychological underpinnings--about how they "felt" about changes. But they didn't know of any impending changes. Well, not until they were asked to do the questionnaire and asked themselves the "why?" question.
Then the results were tabulated and "fed back" to the top levels of management. (The entire employee population knew their managers were at a meeting looking at whatever it was that they had generated in the survey.So they began developing a "resistant" attitude before anything ever happened.)
I watched as a profile of readiness and resistance was displayed on the Powerpoint slides. Then came the somewhat unbelievable: the presenter noted that everyone not sitting in the room would be referred to as a Target for change. It was suddenly an "us" and "them" situation. "We" will be known as the change agents--"they" will be our targets.
Resistance is all about not having enough information to decide that making a change would be in one's best interest.
As you've already guesses, the "Readiness" exercise created "Resistance" that wasn't there to begin with. Stop back tomorrow for the inside scoop on how this was dealt with and how you can do it better the first time around.
'til tomorrow...
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