People Don't Resist Change--Cultures Do

I’ve always pushed back on the notion that people resist change. From my perspective, people don’t resist change—they resist doing things they think are stupid. Or, more accurately, they resist doing things they think go against their interests. Saying it’s “change” is too broad, because there are plenty of times that we will embrace change when we think it’s going to help us.

That said, I do believe that there are times where people genuinely feel they are behind the change, yet for some reason the follow-through is not there. That’s where culture comes into play. Most people don’t realize that their culture can evolve in such a way that it naturally defeats change, even if that wasn’t intended.

This, in my opinion, is why most “digital transformation” projects are over budget, behind schedule, or complete failures. It’s the culture. Everyone gets on the same page about why digital transformation is so desperately needed. They map out the plan, make the key decisions, and set off on implementation. But then it breaks down, because different departments are not collaborating effectively, decision-making roles are unclear, or people get cold feet once the change begins and some people don’t like the results. Decisions that were made get un-made, and the senior level starts getting into the weeds.

Or maybe it gets hung up because when start to dig into the change, people are afraid to take a risk by doing something new. They lack a mindset that accepts that some experiments will fail, but that is an opportunity for learning and growth. So changes are put off or modified so they are less risky, which slows everything down.

Those monkey wrenches are caused by culture, not individual resistance. If you have the culture pattern that we call “awkward collaboration,” where groups don’t collaborate effectively (both departments and layers in the hierarchy), then you’re going to struggle with big digital change. Or if you have the “incomplete innovation” pattern where the practices of innovation (like experimentation) are undervalued, you will also struggle.

The good news is, you can fix these patterns. But you must be proactive about it. Don’t wait until you are three months into the digital change project to realize your culture is slowing things down. Start changing the culture now.

Maddie and I will soon be launching a new “CultureUpgrade” project that will get you started fixing the specific problems that plague digital change projects in just six weeks. This is different than our year-long culture design project, where we investigate every aspect of your culture that might need improving and develop a comprehensive action plan that we then help you implement. In a CultureUpgrade project, we zero in on the specific elements that impact digital change the most, and we help you develop a targeted list of culture change activities to start with—in six weeks. This will enable you to stay ahead of the challenges that come with digital change you are either implementing or planning (including AI adoption).

So here’s the offer: while we’ve don tons of culture change, we’ve not done one of these CultureUpgrade projects specifically, so we’re offering a 50% “early adopter” discount ($7,500 instead of $15,000) to the first organization to commit to the project. Contact me and I’ll send you our project prospectus. First come first served!