Tina Simpson, JD, MSPH
Principal
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT
Last month we introduced this continuing series (Now for Something Completely Different) with the objective of providing practical insights into how organizations can navigate change.
This is an important topic. To paraphrase the Greek Philosopher Heraclitus, change may be the only constant in life (except for death and taxes). The maxim was true then, and is true now, some millennia after. While the fact of change is a constant reality, the rate of change is not. This is something we all experience in an economy and society that is continually responding to (among other things) technological advances. The Harvard Business Review characterizes this modern rate of digital change as a steepening trajectory.” Leading, perhaps to a new proverb, the more things change…. the more other things change. The result is that working within this environment, an organization’s ability to adapt quickly and easily to the wave of evolving market and regulatory demands constitutes a key competitive attribute and predictor of sustainability. Organizations must be agile. Indeed, as my friend and organizational development consultant, Sarah Miller, and her coauthor Dr. Shelley Kirkpatrick posit in The Government Leader’s Field Guide to Organizational Agility “Constant Change requires a different way of organizing.”
But we are getting ahead of ourselves. While promoting organizational agility is the end goal of this series (there, I showed my hand), and while I hope I have made an opening argument for why it is critically important for organizations and their leadership, today I want to address one simple question, why is change so hard?
On an individual level, there is a neurological answer to this (which Charles Duhigg addresses in his popular book, The Power of Habit) but habits can be replaced, and cues routed to different routines. There is also a (big) emotional element we must understand and account for, and that is this: change always involves loss. Whether that loss is the (great) satisfaction of the nightly savoring of a bowl of ice cream (to return to my personal campaign), or the loss of confidence and sense of competence that comes with having to develop a new skill or follow a new process – loss is implicit to change. This is true even when change is manifestly and objectively for the better and in pursuit of a goal that is recognized, desired, and deeply valued. Change, at minimum means relinquishing the habits or tools that a person has relied upon to cope (or even survive) in the circumstances that they may now wish to change. Habits, including those that are detrimental or are in direct opposition to our stated objectives and desires, provide stability and a sense of security. To paraphrase Ronald Heifetz, it is not change, per se, that people resist, but loss.
Loss comes in many forms, the tangible and the intangible, and it is often the intangible that is the most intractable and important. In addition to the loss of security that comes with abandoning “the devil you know” consider the following examples:
- Loss of Competence (and confidence). This may occur when team members are asked to take on a new skill outside of their usual toolkit.
- Loss of Loyalty. Change may require a person to abandon or adjust previously held values or worldviews. Alternatively, a change may challenge the perception of a valued relationship.
- Loss of Identity. We are what we do, and how we do it.
It is critical for leaders to recognize this, as correctly diagnosing a problem (why change is resisted) is the first step in effectively addressing any problem. In this context, this means that when introducing and leading change we need to recognize and account for the emotional, the personal, and the not-always-rational (but always reasonable) reactions one encounters when asking people to adapt from the known to the unknown. Armed with this knowledge, leaders can adapt the manner that they introduce, communicate, and enforce change.
And that is the topic for our next segment, the principles of leading organizational change. For that we will discuss the process steps of change (based on Prosci Adkar’s model of change); how self-efficacy may be the “secret sauce” to sustaining change, and how that applies to a leader’s role in (1) communicating a vision of change; (2) explaining the urgency and necessity of that change; (3) identifying and removing barriers and otherwise implementing, sustaining and reinforcing change.
Until then.