The Secret to Building Change-Readiness
The Secret to Building Change-Readiness
What do leaders do when they discover their people stuck in denial or not paying attention to big changes headed their way? Here are some powerful ideas.
We Have a Problem
Imagine this: You’re at a meeting of professional colleagues and the speaker asks for a show of hands: How many people have taken steps to prepare for massive changes happening in less than 90 days —
And a tiny fraction of hands go up.
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Over the last two months, I’ve heard multiple versions of this story: a broker who said, “This will never happen; Someone will stop it.” A panelist who claimed everything was over. “It’s business as usual.” An executive who recounted a meeting where a tiny fraction of the members recognized the August deadlines for massive changes to their business.
How is it possible, when thousands of careers and billions of dollars are at stake?
Countdown to…. Something
When leaders discover a significant number of people haven’t kept up with major changes, they must act fast. It’s not for lack of trying to inform them, that’s for sure: The industry has poured out conferences, emails, newsletters, webinars, and workshops for over a year. But leaders must set aside any surprise, and get focused on the fact that many people don’t know they’re headed for a cliff.
Strangely, this happens all the time. Big companies and entire industries have missed massive changes approaching. (You’ve read the case studies: Kodak, Blockbuster, the hotel industry vs vacation rentals, and more). An entire cottage industry — change management consulting — exists because people somehow don’t see heed warnings, get focused and take action: Or worse, they remain stubbornly in denial until it’s too late.
Restart at the Real Beginning
Leaders must act quickly to address awareness gaps in their firms and associations. Let’s break the problem down and list effective steps to ignite change-readiness in your people.
First Things First: Two Different Problems
Begin by realizing that building change-readiness means addressing two different challenges:
Building Awareness and Motivation in People
Distributing Knowledge, Training and Guiding New Action
These are two very different needs that require distinct but interlocking strategies.
Don’t Skip Steps
Many leaders think that simply distributing information, advice, training and tools is all that’s necessary to help in others. But shifting human behavior is not like reprogramming a computer. Before anyone can hear your information or engage in training, they must first accept the problem and become motivated to take action.
And: Awareness and motivation aren’t driven by information, but by emotion.
Leaders must create both a desire and commitment to change. Otherwise, it’s impossible to spark any action (other than almost automatically resisting).
People must accept (really, believe) that a problem exists, applies to them, and could hinder their personal goals. Their instinct is always to protect the status quo as long as possible, thanks to a built-in tendency to conserve energy until the last possible moment. It worked millions of years ago, but isn’t so great for the modern pace of change.
Remember: Leaders (you) are already convinced the stakes matter and willing to take action. But your stakeholders, even if they have heard something often, often remain emotionally stuck at a level of awareness called unconsciously incompetent.
They simply don’t know what they don’t know.
And efforts to ‘get the word out’ don’t meet them where they are, but where the leaders have already been.
Change Your First Goal
The first goal isn't getting people to “pay attention” but getting people to care.
That means setting aside, temporarily, communications filled with data, deadlines, content, and training until you’ve done everything to prepare them to believe it’s relevant.
Step 1: Help People to Care
Remember the old maxim, “You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink?” Well, actually, you can….
…. if you make it think that drinking the water was it’s own idea!
That’s what leaders do with their people: Provide opportunities for them to convince themselves that the impending changes matter. Building awareness starts by creating paths for people’s inner voice to say, “Maybe I should check this out further…”
Here are three ways to create a-ha moments:
Useful Fear: Not making people feel bad, but describing undesirable dangers that will occur if they don’t focus and act. Share stories of people whom the change harmed, incurred fines, lost business, experienced personal failure or other negative results that could have been avoided.
Positive Benefits: At the same time, describe the benefits of paying attention and taking action, using values that matter to them like revenue, rewards, prestige, and personal achievement. Put the changes in a positive light.
Sandbox Scenarios: Provide opportunities to discover for themselves they aren’t prepared, and lack the skills, knowledge or strategy for handling the change. This might be as simple as a quick quiz or a story with a “twist” that demonstrates that what they thought would happen isn’t the right answer.
There are many creative options - stories, scenarios, spreadsheets and self-assessments - that lead the person to the water and help them drink of their own volition. Avoid “hitting them on the head” and instead help them “leap to the conclusion” to satisfy their emotional desire to have change happen with them, rather than to them.
Step 2: Quickly Nurture Motivation
When you see signs they’re paying attention, act quickly to address the other emotional need: motivation. It’s not automatic and needs a nudge.
Focus on getting a commitment to get involved. Change-management strategies tell us that even if someone doesn’t like the change, they can still become committed to undertaking it once realize they can manage it to their benefit.
Leaders nurture motivation and build commitment by shifting communications efforts as follows:
Help people connect change to their intrinsic values. People do anything to pursue actions that align with deep desires. Use communications to remind them of personal goals, desires, even company cultural values or industry beliefs. Gently show the connection between values and the opportunity to guide the change. Demonstrate how dealing with the change helps them become more of who they wish to be, and achieve things they wish to accomplish.
Communicate empathy for their feelings, such as shock, fear or denial. Remember the change curve (Coaching Call #1, TLC Deep Dive Discussion, and page 5 of your Leadership Handbook) that describes altering our reaction depending upon the different stages of change. Don’t jump ahead too quickly: They may need more reassurance than training, to reach commitment. Communicate with patience and consistency.