Imagine this:
You are leading a meeting for your organization and arrive early to set up the space. You take all the chairs and set them up classroom style, in rows facing the front of the room.
Participants arrive and take their seats. You walk to the back of the room, so you’re standing behind the participants.
You conduct the entire meeting this way. How well does it work?
This is probably about as successful as trying to push employees into organizational change. Yet this is the way change is implemented in some organizations…leaders get behind employees and try to push them in the “right” direction.
It’s challenging work, and when some employees put on the brakes, they may be labeled as “unable to change” or “having problems with change.” Conflict shouldn’t be a surprise in these instances.
People change all the time…jobs, hair color, geography, spouses. So the “unable to change” diagnosis boxes leaders and employees in, and encourages leaders to do more of what isn’t working: Continue to push, continue to try to “make them change.”
What if, instead, you were to ask, “What is it about this change that’s creating resistance? What have we missed in the implementation that we could learn from these employees? What’s important to them that we’re not addressing in the proposed changes and what can we do about it?”
Copyright © 2007 by Tammy Lenski. All rights reserved.
Wow – Great post and terrific question to bust the barriers against change, Tammy. In my recent work (last week) in Ireland where I collaborate with leaders for organizational change I saw again the value of teaching for transfer.
To see the need for change and understand the keys to get to a target is not enough. When you look for evidence of change and help people to transfer what they know to change what they do – folks need help and support at that stage. Just about the time a change agent leaves – the real work begins I find:-) Thoughts?
Agreed, Ellen. I think too often organizations don’t calculate in the longer term support that is needed for substantive change to gain traction, and that’s where things get tricky. I think it’s one reason why change consultants sometimes leave people with a bad taste in their mouths…not through the failure of the consultant to help people move toward change, but in failure of the process to anticipate the transitional needs.
Thanks for stopping by!
Tammy