Three Reasons Your Change Project Isn’t Going Like You Thought It Would
Part 1: Fear
Recently a client asked a really important question: What makes a change project fail? While failure is nuanced and complex, chances are your struggle with making a change in your organization is rooted in one of three words: fear, culture, and systems.
Today we’ll deal with the first reason your change management project might not be going as you want it: Fear.
A mentor of mine once said, “People don’t fear change – they fear loss and/or coercion.” That has stuck with me over the years. And it's so true!
We’ve all been a part of working to make a change in our organization when we suddenly hit a wall of resistance - it is SO frustrating! Our natural temptation is to push back with the same level of force, to push it through and make it happen. Of course, from experience, we all know how that ends – not well. It leads to frustration by all parties at best and fractured organizations and relationships at the worst.
So, next time you begin to experience resistance in response to a change you are trying to make, instead of spending too much energy on getting frustrated - you will still feel some frustration - take some deep breaths and get curious. Pause, step out of your frustration, and seek to understand the root of the resistance. This is the moment to flex our empathy muscles and seek to gain a perspective and understanding we didn’t have up to that point.
OK, so you hit that resistance wall…
You paused, and took a couple of breaths - now what? We get to ask some clarifying questions:
Wow. You seem really bothered by this change. What is it about the change that bothers you?
We’ve been working on this change for a while, and we didn’t anticipate such resistance. I’m curious - what is it about this change that you don’t like?
Now we are moving into understanding what’s under the surface, the thing behind the thing.
If the issue is fear of loss, then we can change the conversation. We can talk through the possibilities, acknowledge the fear, and look at why the change is critical and what will be gained through change.
Now, if the issue is a fear of coercion, that leads to a deeper conversation about why persons feel coerced and a chance to talk through the change, how the decision was made, and why it was made.
In both situations, the goal is NOT to prove you are right. (Again, that never ends well.) Instead, the goal is to listen to understand the root of the fear or resistance. Sometimes a single understanding conversation is all it takes to address the resistance and move forward. Other times, we’ll learn new information that we didn’t have before that may change or shift how we choose to engage or implement the change.
All that said, the real pro-gamer move to dealing with the fear is to design your change management process with the intentional engagement of your people up front so that, by the time you are making the change, it's not a surprise to anyone. In my experience, people don’t always have to get their way. They just need to know they were heard and able to be a part of the conversations that are shaping the change.
This may mean going a little slower at the beginning of your process, but it will save you time and frustration in the long run.