The #1 Change Technique
Are you leading change in an environment with significant resistance? Are you placing the blame for the resistance on "them"? Do "they not get it"?
Of all the change techniques available to us, the most fundamental and pragmatic approach is to bring the impacted stakeholders of the change into the problem space.
How many times have you seen a large change or transformation get strategized, designed, built, and then deployed with little to no impacted stakeholder involvement? These approaches are often sold with rationalizations like...
1) We don't have the talent to deal with this complex a problem. 2) We need outside perspective, not the same old way of doing things that our current employees built over the last several years. 3) If we acknowledge this change now by engaging our employees, we'll lose control of the messaging and people will resist. 4) Its a competitive advantage to not let people know yet. We'll include them when we are ready.
Secrets kill change.
You can mitigate resistance by...
1) Including the appropriate level and number of your impacted stakeholders in the understanding of the problem. 2) Designing the change solution based on some but not necessarily all the input of the impacted stakeholders. 3) Making champions out of the star impacted stakeholders who demonstrate a passion for change and "the new way".
Bring your impacted stakeholders into the problem. Define "change success requirements" and you will lower the resistance.
Related articles
- Resistance May Depend on Individual Preferences But is Not Unmanageable (culcislamm30.wordpress.com)
- Blog 3: Positive Impact of Organisational Change (ngonapoom.wordpress.com)
- Stakeholder Engagement (trainingtank.com)