Design Organizational Change - Increase 'ability'

(As published on: https://www.changeagent.blog/post/change-agent-weekly-003 )

In this second installment on the 6 sources of influence ( BYLD Crucial Skills that drive #change , we will focus on the ''personal ability". Just because I am motivated to change (see first source of influence, 'personal motivation', does not mean I will change.

Why?

Because the ability to perform change is a key element. I may want but not be equipped to make the change. Therefore, when planning a change initiative, equipping people with the appropriate skills and knowledge is a necessary component.

This is where the conjunction of the #changemanagement and #Training disciplines clearly intersect. A proper training plan that is embedded in the change initiative is needed.

Driving change by supporting the 'personal ability'

When it comes to this, it is paramount we understand the audience proficiency in order to provide support only on what's needed. Being economical is important both from the company resource perspectives and also from the individual cognitive load.

For this reason, we follow these steps:

1. A skill and knowledge baseline assessment, to determine if there is a skill and/or knowledge gap
2. If there is, we can plan the training plan
3. We execute it in a way that is embedded in the change initiative and also embedded in the workflow (I refer to the "5 Moments of Need " model by Bob Mosher and Conrad Gottfredson )
4. We assess the impact and we improve the plan.

To increase ability, practice is needed

As every training professional know, or should know, formal training is a very small piece of increasing the ability to perform an action. Deliberate practice is what makes the difference.

A proper plan that, on top of the needed knowledge gaps, fully addresses how people will practice, is needed. I tend to reflect on sports analogies a lot, when dealing with corporate change initiatives: I can teach the rules of the game, but if a player does not practice in a deliberate manner, and repeats and repeats, her ability to perform will not improve.

Deliberate practice is, of course, deliberate. What does this mean?

- That a proper environment for practice is needed (simulated approaches, safe places for testing and making mistakes)

- That a commitment to a schedule, repeated practice, is needed. The effort must be heavy, consistent, durable.

- That feedback is provided and it is aligned to the desired behavior and the gaps observed

Deliberate practice is hard

Deliberate practice requires a lot of effort because you are venturing into what you know less. It is less fun than to practice what you know already:

"It’s very easy to neglect deliberate practice. Experts who reach a high level of performance often find themselves responding automatically to specific situations and may come to rely exclusively on their intuition. This leads to difficulties when they deal with atypical or rare cases, because they’ve lost the ability to analyze a situation and work through the right response. Experts may not recognize this creeping intuition bias" (https://hbr.org/2007/07/the-making-of-an-expert)

This is why when planning a corporate intervention we have to plan against this human and natural resistance.

How are we designing learning experiences that maximize practice while being easily accessible, motivating and engaging?

I suggest to start from minimizing the effort of the employee side.

1. Embed the practice into the workplace (see reference above to the 5 Moments of needs)
2. Make it easily accessible and simple to consume
3. Make it personal through personal mentors or coaches

Driving change is hard also because we are asking people to make a significant cognitive and time effort. Reducing the friction is an important planning component.

What about you?

How do you ensure your change initiatives have a strong focus on 'personal ability' and provide deliberate practice experiences?