Puzzle 5b. What are smart ways to harness change and transformation dynamics despite complexity? Change Adoption, Sustained

This article series -- What do Sudoku, Upstream Oil and Gas, and Successful Transformation Have in Common? -- explores the interdependencies of success in digital transformation and success in business performance. This fifth chapter of the series focuses on the puzzle of What are smart ways to harness change and transformation dynamics despite complexity, with a deep look at Change Adoption, Sustained. Overall, seven enticing puzzles are portrayed to offer leaders in both camps additional perspectives about each other, and to stimulate ideas of new moves, executed in partnership, for achieving greater and durable progress.

Leaders steering change need for stakeholders to accept and adopt those changes. What do stakeholders need?

When taking on the puzzle of getting stakeholders to adopt and sustain changes, it’s helpful to start with a turbo tour of language and a few strategic fundamentals. First, consider the word: adopt. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines adopt as “to take up and practice or use,” such as “adopted a moderate tone”. This is a personal behavioral change. And, a fundamental in the case of significant business change is that adoption often requires a significant behavioral change.

Among the most essential considerations for advancing change adoption are:

• Timing and pace of change
• Impact on basic human needs
• Connection with individuals’ motivations

Let’s explore these.

Timing and Pace of Change

Another fundamental: Change is a process. The image below depicts the phases of it. 

The change process is well-documented and validated by considerable research. The legitimacy of it is even more compelling when considered in the context of a most significant personal change: loss and grief. Below is the Kübler-Ross Grief Cycle, from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ groundbreaking research in On Death and Dying.

This change acceptance and adoption process is sound science; it just may not be your domain.

Change leaders’ goal is to move stakeholders through the process as efficiently and effectively as possible. The graphs above explain why “so much” time is required for people to process change and adopt it. It’s logical and common that change sponsors will process a change plan first and faster than their stakeholders. As their change program shifts into deployment, these leaders are often frustrated at how long it takes for adoption to take hold. What they miss is that they are already farther along (usually much farther along) in their own personal change acceptance process and that their organization is still at a much earlier stage. Time is required for people to process and adopt change. And this duration is only lengthened when stakeholders are processing multiple change initiatives simultaneously. Such situations result in “change fatigue.” Management’s expectations need to be aligned with this requirement and successful change leaders are mindful of this.

Another fundamental: Change resistance is not a bad thing, to be suppressed. Note that resistance is an essential part of the change process. Therefore, it is the signal that stakeholders are paying attention and have begun the change journey that the sponsor launched. Handling resistance effectively isn’t “babysitting;” it’s a critical success factor. Resistance is only a problem when, after careful change management efforts, someone stays stuck there.

How to accelerate change adoption? Plan for and address stakeholders concerns and fears.

Impact on basic human needs

Restating an important point from Dean Anderson and Linda Ackerman Anderson’s Beyond Change Management: “Part of the [change] issue is internal. Sometimes we simply unconsciously assume that the change we face will lead to bad outcomes, to some future we will not like. Many of us live in a myth that things will remain the same, that there is normalcy that change disrupts and that we want to maintain. Some of us have a difficult time adapting. We do not like the extra effort required to figure out how to thrive in the changed circumstance. Other times we feel victimized by change, that it happening to us and that we are powerless to influence it. The bottom line is that most of us are just not very change ready or change capable. We want and expect things to remain the same.”

Change, operational or otherwise, connects to core human needs, including:

• Security: Needing to feel secure and physically and emotionally safe, cared about
• Inclusion and Connection: Needing to be invited to join the group, be part of what is happening and in relationship to others
• Power: Needing to have direct influence over the outcome and process of change; needing things to go as I want; needing to maintain power or influence as a result of the change.
• Order and Control: Needing to know what is going on at all times and have things be predictable, structured, and planned; needing logic and order in the change, with minimal surprises
• Competence: Needing to feel capable, effective, skilled, and right
• Justice and Fairness: Needing things to be fair and equitable

Successful change leaders pay keen attention to these dynamics when executing programs. For example, when explaining what will change, they clarify what will not change. They prioritize planning and communication that address dilemmas such as: “Over my career I have grown and established stature as an authority on something. This change will undermine my position of respect in my community. [power, inclusion]” “I have proven my capability at what I do. This change will make me a novice. [competence]” “This change will eliminate my job. [security]”. Again, this isn’t babysitting, it’s change management.

Connecting with individuals’ motivations

Individuals choose to adopt changes; management cannot dictate change, not really. Individuals need to hear compelling reasons for getting on board that resonate with their specific situation. Whether billing clerks, early career engineers, seasoned engineers, or members of the leadership team, this ask is personal and the reasons each stakeholder gets builds trust for a win-win outcome.

Effective change leaders communicate compelling purpose as transparently as possible. They earn trust. They listen. They set, then refine purpose and expectations clearly. They are candid about the journey to the new normal, including accountability and limits. When unanticipated challenges arise, they promptly fill communication voids; otherwise, those voids will be filled by others’ agendas. They are willing to make reasonable adjustments, as well; after all, they’re asking everyone else to. Modeling and reinforcing the new normal is a critical success factor when leading change; hypocrisy won’t be tolerated by stakeholders weighing adoption. Emphasizing a tone of openness, authenticity, and empathy, change leaders provide frequent updates about successes, learnings, and course corrections. And they listen.

As adoption becomes widespread, change leaders’ priorities shift to reinforcing it and sustaining it.

Returning to our turbo tour of fundamentals and language, note that sustain is also a verb, an ongoing action. Synonyms of sustain include prolong, nourish and support; antonyms are revert, backslide, and regress.

Some essential requirements for cultivating this sustained change state include:

• Celebration of successes and new opportunities
• Closure on conclusion of the status quo
• Clear expectations about accountability

Following is a discussion of each of these.

Celebration of successes and new opportunities

While all great work deserves acknowledgement, there is special value in celebrating successes delivered using new, changed processes and/or technologies. Learning of multiple successes gives stakeholders confidence that they are among the majority who are mastering the new. Too, colleagues’ successes carry greater credibility than leaders’ promises. Of course, expanded acceptance by stakeholders leaves less and less room for stubborn resistors.

Closure on conclusion of the status quo

On the flip side of the celebration coin, have you ever considered that well-worn processes might deserve a hero’s farewell? Presumably, those processes added value to the firm (and its practitioners) for some time. Below is a list of options to get your own ideas rolling:

• “Roast” the old ways of doing things
• A bonfire (or shredding event) with speeches and mementos [eg, for old process maps]
• A ritual “wake” or burial of the old ways
• A museum to honor the old; putting the old products under glass or in display cases to be respected but not touched. [figurative or proxy instead of literal]
• A televised ritual to tear down or dismantle old equipment, factories, or products
• Videos or slide shows commemorating the past

Clear expectations about accountability

Last but not least, success at sustaining adoption of change depends on setting clear expectations about resources and support available during the transition, as well as expectations about internal stakeholders’ performance thereafter. It is very important for change leaders to accept that resistance will occur during change programs. As discussed earlier, it’s normal, and the silver lining is that it signals that the change process is taking hold. Acknowledging and supporting healthy resistance is always a big part of optimizing stakeholders’ change journeys. But press on they must. Ultimately, change programs are performed to enable significant business strategies, and the workforce needs to know that substantial adoption is the only option.

Maybe if I wait this out long enough, things will go back to normal. When best efforts are applied and an individual continues to resist, either openly or secretly, then they need to be doing so with full understanding of the repercussions. Compassionate but firm follow-through on this is make-or-break for the change program. The workforce will always be watching for inconsistent behaviors by management and will withdraw trust and support, in a tidal wave of cynicism.

In my own experience leading transformation across huge divisions and small enterprises, these methods served me so well. Across all levels, colleagues were treated as adults that are capable of understanding decision rationale and as partners deserving of respect. Not everyone agreed with the changes needed or the game plan for accomplishing them, however they were completely clear about how and why these were determined. They trusted that their interests were heard, and often saw their ideas added in later phases. Individuals were coached on how the new operation would help their career specifically, both in the present and even later with other employers, under a hypothetical worst-case scenario.

As leaders, we help ourselves and advance our change mission by constant self-checking for

• Hypocrisy, seeking change from others while being blind to our own need to change
• Mindfulness, tuning in to how we felt during the early years of our own career, filled with lots of uncertainty and little control
• Silo mentality, skipping (or avoiding?) collaboration with experts who complement our strengths (change practitioners, corporate communications, human resources, IT, finance, legal, etc.)

Sustainment of change adoption is a critical lever for gaining the benefits that business and digital transformation promise. However, a 30% success rate is not viable. Business leaders must prioritize People appropriately in the process-people-technology triad of our strategic pursuits.

The change will do you good.

Puzzle: How to successfully achieve change adoption that’s durable and sustained?

Puzzle Move: Integrate change management competencies into business leadership development for direct application within Operations and P&Ls (not just HR).

Could applying change management practices within the business give CEOs greater maneuverability in steering the company ship to attract and retain investors?

Could the integration of change management practices into Digital Transformation pursuits materially increase the chance of success delivering on business case promises?

Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth. On Death And Dying. New York: Collier Books/Macmillan 1970, c1969.

Anderson, L. A., Anderson, D. 2010. Beyond Change Management, second edition. Pfeiffer.