How to Build Commitment to Change; Revisited

Implementing a strategic plan by executing action steps is a large-scale organizational change process. However logical and essential the change seems to those driving it, others will resist change and be a barrier to successful implementation. Gaining and maintaining commitment to the plan and its implementation is a critical step.

A decade ago, I wrote the preceding sentences in my book, AHEAD , and offered the following list of causes and common-sense, tried-and-true remedies to foster plan implementation. I stand by what I wrote, but now I have more of value to offer, insight that leaders can use to further assure that the organization’s strategic plan gets implemented.

Continuing what I wrote in 2013…

It is important to understand why people in organizations do not embrace change. Research shows people resist change because:

• They see change as discomforting and burdensome. People in organizations tend to get comfortable with how things are – their role, status and relationships. They tend to see that change requires new engagement with the organization and other people within it. They see change bringing them added work and stress.
• They see change as requiring a new mindset, behaviors and skills. Change turns off organization members because they think it will negate some of the value of what they have learned about the organization, especially what they know about “what works” to get along, cope, and succeed. They believe a new paradigm will likely require them to adopt new behaviors and master new skills.
• They see change as unnecessary or wrong. People may resist change because they don't get the vision and its allure or benefit – they don’t see a compelling reason to change. Or they may grasp the vision but disagree with it or the premises on which it is based.
• They fear change. When large-scale change is called for, it’s common for organization members to fear losing their job, role in the organization, or status or rank. Fundamentally, change poses a threat of loss of control and power over the environment; of general risk and apprehension over “the unknown”; and of failure.

Leaders and the planning group can do much to develop and maintain commitment to the plan and implementation. Actions involve: Leadership, Engagement, Message, Communications, and Incentives.

• Leadership. Visible engagement of the leaders in the change process and their obvious ownership of the vision, strategies and action steps are vital to getting organization-wide commitment to the needed change. Leaders need to articulate the vision, strategies and action steps to those called to implement the plan and those whom it will affect. They need to be honest and straightforward and share information about the plan and its implementation. As the strategies and action steps demand changed behaviors and values, leaders should model the change through their own changed behaviors and values. Leaders need to be positive and enthusiastic about the process and its expected results. As implementation proceeds, leaders need to continue to stand by and support the vision, strategies and action steps.
• Engagement. Engage the wider organization. Enlist volunteers and ask for help: Who steps up may be a surprise. Find visible and vocal champions of strategy implementation. But widen the enlistment. Involvement promotes ownership. Bring gatekeepers, political leaders and influencers into the process when building cross-functional teams for specific implementation actions. Hard-won lesson: Support the teams and team leaders through the change process with resources, communications and other follow-through. Otherwise, the initial vocal support generated can turn to criticism, negativity, and loss of commitment.
• Message. Use logical and psychological appeals to build commitment. Education of the organizational participants is vital. Help them see what the planning group sees, why the strategies and action steps are vital. Build the case that implementing strategies and action steps to move to the vision either is called for because the organization is in a crisis or, if it is not in a crisis, implementing strategies and action steps will avert a coming crisis and bring a better future. Give them a new “mental map” of how the organization will work. Stress that this is a time for “new rules” – the old ways must pass for the organization to survive, grow and thrive, to benefit all stakeholders including employees.
• Communications. Promote the vision, strategies and action steps at every opportunity. Give organization members ways to express their views and concerns about the vision, strategies and their role. Listen, respond and adjust as appropriate. State that any pain from doing “two jobs” will be temporary but the positive results from moving to the vision will be ongoing. Look for quick wins in implementation of action steps and make them obvious. Report problems and corrections on an on-going basis. Celebrate progress, success and those who bring it.
• Incentives. Visibly praise and reward those who are truly working toward the vision. Don’t let naysayers who will not change block the needed change. If they do not “get with the program” on their own, require that they “get with it,” and if they still don’t, then “wall them off” in a role where they will not damage the effort or remove them from the organization.

Back to 2023…

Address root causes

What I now know is that the topline look I took a decade ago at why people resist change and what to do about it is enhanced by understanding the influence of behavioral and psychological factors. My work on the role of mental traps, biases, fallacies, and errors in decision making, detailed in my latest book, BIG DECISIONS , illuminates what likely is at work when people avoid, resist, or ignore the necessity to change. Knowing what’s at the root of people’s actions and non-action regarding proposed change suggests actions to counter each factor, some noted above and others less obvious, as well as proactive steps leaders can take to harness peoples’ mental state and thought processes to support plan implementation.

Here’s a list, with suggested actions to counter each trap, bias, or error:

Ambiguity effect. Our tendency to avoid options for which missing information makes the probability for the option to seem unknown.

Action: Give the people who must implement the plan as much information as possible on the course being pursued and why it appears to be the best course for the organization.

Current moment bias. We tend to favor immediate payoffs over later payoffs. When exposed to the possibility of two positive outcomes, we most often opt for the shorter-term outcome. We have difficulty imagining ourselves in the future and changing our behaviors and expectations accordingly, We desire to enjoy pleasure now and to delay pain. This leads us to make choices today that our future selves would prefer we had not made. (Also called “hyperbolic discounting” and “present bias.”)

Action: Start plan implementation with a series of small “easy win” steps that give more immediate payoffs and continue to break down implementation into smaller and more immediate steps.

Escalation of commitment. A more extreme version of the sunk cost effect where people justify increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment, despite new evidence suggesting that the decision was probably wrong and increased investment would not rescue the effort. (Also called the “Concorde effect” and “irrational escalation.”)

Action: Highlight opportunity costs - Focus on the greater likely payoff from the new path as opposed to continuing on the existing path.

Exaggerated expectation. When real-world evidence turns out to be less extreme than expectations.

Actions: To counter the naysayers who see doom coming from plan implementation, ground them in reality, that is, show them that the greater risk is from not changing and that safeguards are in place to assure that plan implementation will be effective.

Familiarity heuristic. Our tendency to believe that our behavior is correct if we have have done it before. We use our past actions as proof that a behavior is appropriate.

Action: Widen the aperture - Show those who see what’s being proposed as unfamiliar and risky where the organization and/or others that are respected have succeeded by taking actions similar to those now being proposed.

Future blindness. We are unable to take into account the properties of the future.

Action: Paint the futures for the organization, the one that will ensue without change and the one that is sought by stretching for the planned change.

Gambler’s fallacy. We tend to place too much weight on past events and confuse our memory with how the world works, not recognizing that past events have little or no effect on future outcomes.

Actions: Offer a clear-eyed assessment on the roles of planned change and luck in producing outcomes for the organization in the past. Show how the current situation differs from the past and how implementing the plan steps will address the current situation in a positive way.

Independent self trap. When we separate ourselves from our interdependence with others.

Action: Underscore the dependence of organization members on the team and that only by working together can the team succeed and therefore members benefit.

Isolated problem trap. When we regard problems as unconnected to their wider contexts and fail to see the global effects of a local problem.

Action: Show how plan implementation steps connect to attaining objectives vital to reaching the desired future for the organization. A logic model can be helpful in depicting how actions connect to desired outcomes.

Loss aversion or avoidance. We tend to treat losses as more important than gains when directly compared to or weighed against each other. This asymmetry leads us to focus more on avoiding losses than on obtaining gains.

Actions: Show the importance of “plan implementation wins” while also highlighting probable losses if the gains are not obtained. “We have to move because X bad things will happen and if we do this then we not only will avoid the bad things but will gain Y good things.”

Normalcy bias. Not planning for or reacting to a disaster which has never happened before.

Action: Show that the disasters - bad outcomes - that the plan seeks to avoid have happened before, if not to the organization then certainly to other organizations. Make the prospect of bad outcomes tangible.

Reactance. How a person tends to think or act when they perceive a threat to their freedom. The tendency is to do the opposite of what someone wants you to do out of a need to resist a perceived attempt to constrain your freedom of choice.

Action: Reassure the team that the result of acting will increase or preserve choice or freedom. Logically, if the organization is cornered by not acting now, that will decrease freedom of choice.

Risk averse. People tend to want to avoid risk when faced with a moderate to high probability of gains or a low probability of losses.

Action: Highlight the potential losses from not achieving the change sought through implementing the plan.

Shared information bias. The tendency for group members to spend more time and energy discussing information that all or most members are already aware of and less time and energy discussing (or not discussing at all) information that only some members or just one member are aware of. (Also known as the “collective information sampling bias.”)

Actions: When groups need to be convened for communicating about implementation, to gain buy-in on implementation, or to act on implementation, focus the agenda solely on plan implementation and assure that ahead of the group meetings all members have information on what is being asked of them or what the group needs to consider or do.

Status quo bias. We tend to normalize our current situation as our reference point and defend and reinforce the status quo, leading us to view deviations from the status quo as riskier, less desirable, or too much e?ort. Existing social, economic, and political arrangements tend to be preferred, and alternatives disparaged, even at the expense of individual and group self-interest. (Also called “system justification.”)

Action: HIghlight why the status quo is untenable, the bad outcomes that will ensue if change is not pursued.

Sunk-cost effect or fallacy. Our tendency to persist in achieving a goal due to already committed expenditure and investment, including effort and attention, even when the prognosis for success is poor. We tend to persist in a failing action because we are justifying our previous decision. It’s a mistake in reasoning in which the sunk costs of an activity - instead of the future costs and benefits - are considered when deciding whether to continue the activity. The greater the size of the sunk investment, the more people tend to invest further, even if the return on added investment appears not to be worthwhile. Sometimes described as "throwing good money after bad," because the resources and effort are already lost, no matter what you do now. (Also called the “investment trap” and “persistence of commitment.”)

Action: Highlight opportunity costs - Focus on the greater likely payoff from the new path as opposed to continuing on the existing path.

Traditional wisdom. Believing that a practice is acceptable today simply because it has been apparently wise in the past. Yet, past practices might or might not now be justifiable as appropriate and effective.

Action: When asking people to change what they do to drive change, show them what it is that has changed, is changing, or will change that necessitates that they act in new ways.

Enlist biases for good

My work on the role of mental traps, biases, fallacies, and errors in decision making further suggests how leaders can use some of these mental tendencies to gain support for and encourage plan implementation. (Note that I am not suggesting ill-intended deception nor unwarranted manipulation. My blog post “Leaders who mislead” showed how these mental pre-dispositions can be misused by leaders.)

Here are some traps, biases, fallacies, and errors that leaders may be able to enlist in the cause of building commitment to implementation:

Bandwagon Effect. People, often unconsciously, love to go with the flow of the crowd, large or small. We desire to fit in and conform. This effect can cause behaviors, social norms, and memes to propagate among groups of individuals – regardless of the evidence or motives in support.

Action: Get implementation supporters to speak up from the start and in group settings on the virtues of the plan and getting the plan implemented.

Champion bias or effect. People’s tendency to evaluate a plan or proposal based on the track record of the person presenting it more than on the facts supporting it.

Action: Have respected, successful people advocate for plan implementation.

Default option. An option that is selected automatically unless an alternative is specified. A high share of choosers do nothing when there is a default option, disregarding whether it is good for them. Making an option a default increases the likelihood that it is chosen. (Also called the “default choice.”)

Action: Describe implementation actions as “what we do,” not as things we need to alter our tasks and behavior to do.

Expectation bias. When an individual's expectations about an outcome influences perceptions of their or others' behavior.

Actions: Set great expectations and spread assurance that the course is right.

Illusion of truth effect. People are more likely to identify statements that they have previously heard as true (even if they don’t remember hearing them), no matter the validity of the statement. In essence. a person is more likely to believe a familiar statement than a statement that is not familiar.

Action: Keep talking about the need for the plan and the virtues of implementing it and have others repeat and amplify this message.

Liking. People are more likely to be persuaded or in?uenced by people that they like.

Action: Enlist “likeable advocates” to promote plan implementation.

Mere exposure effect. Our tendency to like something merely because of our familiarity with it.

Action: Keep talking about the need for the plan and the virtues of implementing it and have others repeat and amplify this message.

Picture superiority effect. Pictures and images are more likely to be remembered – to be more easily and frequently recalled – than words.

Action: Use pictures and images to convey the plan and the need for effective, ongoing, and consistent implementation.

Recency e?ects. The more recent our experience is with a piece of information, the more it tends to influence us. We tend to be most influenced by what we have last seen or heard.

Action: Communicate often about the need for implementing the plan, especially immediately ahead of the initiation of new implementation steps.

Reframing. Changing the way we look at situations, experiences, events, ideas, or emotions and, thus, changing our experience of them.

Action: Reframe the new work and added stress that implementation will entail as the exciting, special opportunity to be part of changing the course of the organization to a great new direction and outcome.

Regret. Because people dislike feeling regret and have great regret about things they can fix, regret motivates people to act. When people feel regret or to avoid regret, they are highly likely to act.

Action: Highlight the current opportunity to create a better future for the organization - and to be part of creating that better future - and, by implication - the regret they will feel if they don’t do their part in bringing about this change.

Rewards. Reinforcers that result in an increase in desired behavior.

Action: Use a system of rewards (consider both monetary and non-monetary options) to develop commitment.

Salience bias. Our tendency to focus on and make judgements based on items or information that are more prominent or emotionally striking while ignoring items or information that do not grab our attention.

Action: Highlight and underscore messages about the need for effective implementation.

Scarcity heuristic. People tend to enlarge the value of opportunities that they perceive to be limited and compete with others to obtain them.

Action: Frame the object of the change sought through plan implementation as going after a rare, transient opportunity.

Social proof heuristic. We tend to believe that a behavior is correct to the extent that other people are engaged in it. People are more likely to take this shortcut when they are uncertain and when others similar to them are engaged in an activity.

Action: At all levels, highlight people who are invested in implementing the plan.

Sunflower Management. The tendency for groups to align with the views of the group leaders, whether expressed or assumed.

Action: Assure that group leaders are vocal about the need for implementing the plan.

Vivid descriptions. Information that is vivid, specific, and personal affects our thinking more than subdued, abstract, and more general information that may be more important as evidence.

Action: Paint a vivid, appealing picture relating to the people who implement the plan about the exciting opportunity they have and the rewarding result they can anticipate.

A road map and tools

There you have it, my up-to-date understanding of why people resist change and what to do about it.

Taken together, the “tried and true” approach to building commitment to change combined with ways to counter and even leverage people’s mental traps, biases, fallacies, and errors to promote commitment provides a road map and tools for leaders to use to assure that the plan gets implemented and the necessary change occurs.