People say they don’t like change

Did you ever stop to think why they say, “I don’t like change”? Some immutable facts. The weather changes every day in the UK. Trees have a long life in comparison to people, they can die, causing change as they fall over onto roads. This can be in any weather condition. Change is normal and the culture of the business matters as does the alignment to business direction. Still not convinced or want to read a bit deeper two good books are “Who’s moved my cheese” & “Our iceberg is melting” they are analogous stories on why change is normal, led by people and necessary for change to be managed.

Question: You only have one road to drive down and it’s blocked by a big tree, you have a choice of options including: waiting; drive around it; remove the blockage yourself; go a different way.

Just think about your only option being waiting. Great right? Not your first choice or would that depend on certain things such as how long? Meaning having a choice, even if it's Hobsons choice? That or nowt! Taking away choice impacts the attitude to change. People like to feel they have some control over the changes that affect them. They like influence over their lives. Issues arise when autonomy, influence and control of change are removed. Meaning people do not like:

• having limited choices;
• being ‘changed’;
• being told to change.

These are quite different from, people “not liking” change. Change starts with an attitude, in particular, managing people, or are people led? Consider the following: - Because of the direction of a company, its people are required to solve a challenge, to cross a river. You must cross the river as an organisation.

Based on this scenario by selecting two factors to best describe how people are organised and the culture of its people react, which of these following statements best reflects your experience?

1 – “Most of the people are completely indifferent and it’s somebody else’s problem, we’ll be told what to do in extreme detail as usual, passed down from the ivory towers.”

2 – “The “grown-ups” shall appraise what is best for us, make sure we’re going in the right direction. They’ll tell us what is needed and we’ll get on and do it.”

3 – “Management don’t really understand what we do anyway, everything is a bit fraught as usual, fire fighting, reactive, you know how it is. We’re all working towards it in our own way. One chap just swam across. Some of us are working on a boat, some argued we could just dam the river, some think a tunnel is best and are digging that, hmm maybe I can join them. A bridge makes sense though no-one seems to be building anything yet. Hopefully we’ll get round to sorting it out.”

4 – “We’ve been set the goal of getting across the river. It’s a big challenge but we’ll pull together and get across. Those that are good at this sort of thing, innovative thinkers, may have done it before, put together a proposal for a bridge and communicated it. Everyone knows their part and what we’re working towards.”

Henrik Kniberg says it beautifully with the cover image! Picking out the perceived autonomy, culture and organisation type with alignment to direction from each of the above statements:

1 – Having no choice or control of change. Not really aligned to business objectives. Micromanaged organisation with an indifferent culture with little to no autonomy.

2 – They know where the company is going making them aligned but don’t have much choice. Authoritative organisation with a conformist culture, little or no autonomy.

3 – Lots of autonomy as they can choose pretty much what they do, what they work on but generally are considered low alignment or completely unaligned with the company direction, in some cases, work against it. Entrepreneurial organisation with a chaotic culture.

4 – It was Steve Jobs who is accredited with the phrase, “You don’t employ clever people, then tell them what to do.” Aligned autonomy comes from an innovative organisation with a collaborative culture. To have high alignment and high autonomy, it’s:

• Leadership, not management;
• Listening, not telling;
• Setting goals, not SMART targets;
• Well-being and happiness, not performance metrics or productivity measures;
• Switching between mentoring, coaching, consultation, counselling, not supervision.

Not changing, standing still or not addressing obsolescence and so-called technical debt, means you’ll be left behind.