From Resistance to Resilience: How to Cultivate a Culture of Technology Adoption

Every year, companies devote significant time, money, and effort to improving their technology stack. Whether it’s updating the tools they already have or purchasing new solutions, keeping technology aligned with business needs is a never-ending challenge.

But finding the right tools and solutions is only half the battle. In order to successfully implement new technology, the end users of that technology must embrace it. While it’s natural for employees to resist change, that resistance shouldn’t hinder your company’s tech evolution.?

Putting together a clear strategy and a team of experts will ultimately save ￡￡￡￡’s in the long run.?So, if user adoption is so critical but often overlooked, what should leaders keep in mind.

6 tips to improve user adoption

1. Start with the end in mind

When you begin a project with a clear vision of your end goal, you’re less likely to get sidetracked or fall prey to common pitfalls. Make sure you have clarity on how the new technology works, how it differs from the current solution, who will be using it, how it meets their business needs, and the framework you’ll need to get all the pieces in place. Involving end-users in the buying process can help to clarify all these questions.

2. Get the right people

Success is largely down to the people and the change team. Technology change, adoption and training is a real skill, done correctly and the technology will be adopted with ease and smiles. Done badly and you’ll face resistance, delays and poor ROI.

Leveraging our (Qurated) network of highly skilled consultants, we build a bespoke team of experts to either augment your current team or own the entire rollout. Helping you ramp up and roll off resources as you need, with the option to transition consultants to FTE to retain the knowledge.

3. Demonstrate the benefits

The benefits of say Microsoft Copilot are probably clear to you. After all, you’ve spent countless hours researching and campaigning for the investment. But those advantages may not be as obvious to the lawyers, who are used to the status quo. Be explicit about how the new technology benefits the organization as a whole, as well as anything the individual stands to gain—whether it’s a faster deal cycle, streamlined process, improved efficiency, deeper cross-team collaboration, or some other added value.

4. Make it easy to use

Change is never easy, but it’s important to keep things as simple as possible. The more convenient you can make the new technology, the more likely end users will adopt it. Break tasks down into digestible chunks and step-by-step instructions. Start with a small group of ‘champions’. Hold lunch and learns at convenient times. Use clear visuals and interactive elements to show how things work.

5. Leverage data to show impact

As you’re laying out the advantages of a new solution, leverage data to support the story. You should be able to show things like the impact of new capabilities, increased efficiency, cost savings, reduction in effort, and end-user satisfaction. Bringing the impact to life with data can help to reinforce the importance of learning the new technology and making the effort to incorporate it in daily tasks.?

6. Make the technology essential

It’s one thing to tell employees they’re required to use a new technology. It’s another thing altogether to integrate that technology into critical everyday processes. For example, rather than instructing your sales team to use a new CRM, you can build the process so that only opportunities created with that solution are entered into the sales funnel.?

Reasons for poor user adoption

At a high level, user adoption breaks down for a number of reasons, lack of senior sponsorship, lack of planning, poor communication and failure to deploy the right people to make it happen. Understanding the root causes of poor user adoption can help to avoid these issues or at least identify them early, while there’s still time steer the ship.?

To increase user adoption and help ensure your next technology implementation runs smoothly, avoid these three common pitfalls.

1. End users aren’t that bothered!

A lack of interest is the biggest barrier to user adoption. Without a clear understanding of the technology and its benefits, those users have little reason to get excited and make the effort to change their normal routine. After all, end users are the ones who have to engage with the new technology on a day-to-day basis and incorporate it into their business processes. Effective communication, robust training, and even incentives can help to minimize apathy.

2. Communication and training are lacking (or ineffective)

This ties closely to item #1 above. Successful adoption requires?users to understand both the benefits of the new technology and how to use it. Communicate early and often to ensure users recognize the need for the new technology, how it strengthens the business, and the positive impact on their own workflow. Senior leaders and stakeholders across the business must advocate and endorse the changes. ?

Then?develop engaging training?that addresses the different ways users will engage with the new technology and provides guidance on all relevant functionality. And remember that training isn’t a one-time thing!

3. No one is held accountable for user adoption

User adoption is almost guaranteed to suffer when no one is held accountable for making it happen. After all, there’s a reason for the old saying, “What gets measured, gets done.” So be sure to build accountability for user adoption into your technology implementation plan. Start by designating who is responsible, set goals, establish milestones, monitor progress and finally track success.

The pace of business isn’t likely to slow down. That means businesses will need to continue to review, enhance, and upgrade their technology stacks for the foreseeable future. Recognizing the importance of user adoption, implementing the right team, understanding the reasons it can fail, and taking steps to prioritize it can help to ensure the effectiveness of each new addition to your tech stack.

I'd love to discuss your technology adoption challenges, reach out to organise a call.