Be careful not to label a "Detractor" too early!

My colleague and I were working with the QA and Compliance department of a large pharmaceutical client.?This particular?team of 12 professionals was trying to move from being seen “cops” who hound their internal clients to follow SOP’s and get their documentation complete to being seen as “helpful consultants”.?Earlier in our work with them, we had shared the visual below to talk about the journey they are on and how their will be a time during this journey that they feel a bit incompetent as they try out new behaviors.

Irene, one member of the team, felt competent in her current role, but she was struggling with this change effort. ?As the external consultants, we were starting to hear “Irene stories” from others, stories that tended to start with an eye roll.?We were supposed to be objective and neutral, but you hear enough “Irene stories” you start wondering, “What’s up with Irene!?!” She was starting to be seen as a Detractor.

About six months into the project, we came in for a two hour meeting with the team to see how they were doing with this transition.?We knew if we just had them sat around the conference table and asked them “how’s it going?” that the best we might get is “fine” or “all good”.?We wanted to figure out a way that would get them to be a little more transparent about where they are, so we gave them each a flipchart page and asked them to draw their response to “This is where I am in this moment in this change process.”

After they took some time to create their drawings, we just asked whoever was ready to get up and go and use the visual to “tell their story”.?As we went around the room, we all noticed that Irene was looking a bit stressed and was hunched over her folded up drawing.?As we got to her turn, you could see some people starting to look at each other with a “Oh boy! Not another Irene gripe?”

She went up to the flipchart and unveiled her drawing.?It showed a woman on a tight rope crossing from one side of a cavern to another holding a long pole for balance. The woman was struggling to keep her balance and you could see the sweat coming off her face and at the bottom of the cavern were a bunch of crocodiles with their mouths open ready to devour her.?Irene started telling the group how she was struggling with this effort, and you could see she was connecting powerfully with what she drew (as did the rest of us).?The room was completely silent.?Irene was being totally vulnerable in front of us and it stopped us in our tracks.?I don’t remember much more about that day, nor do I know what happened between that meeting and the next time we came out to meet with them, but something shifted.?I am guessing that members of the team followed up with Irene and let her know that they are behind her and that they understood she is trying her best to make the transition.?In that moment it was clear she was not feeling very competent, and it scared her.?She wanted to know they had her back and would not judge her harshly if she showed some occasional incompetence.?They must have let her know because Irene ended up becoming the biggest champion of the process!?It reminded me to be careful not to label someone a detractor too early in a change/transformation process.