A life lived in fear is a life half lived: 5 Lessons on Change Management from Strictly Ballroom
Did anyone else realise that Paul Mercurio (who played Scott Hastings in the movie Strictly Ballroom) won the seat of Hastings in the Victorian election over the weekend?
Because of this reminder of 1990’s nostalgia, I re-watched Strictly Ballroom on Sunday and realised not only is it a movie about ballroom dancing, it is also about change.
Hear me out! The movie is full of examples of what it’s like being an agent of change:
💃 You will feel unsafe and alone – Challenging an established status quo is hard. Federation president Barry Fyfe had a vested interest in keeping things the way they are and would do anything to keep his power and status – including lying, cheating, manipulating and intimidating others. Some people agreed with Scott but were too scared to speak up. As a result, he felt incredibly alone and wondered if he was making a huge mistake.
💃 The risk might seem too great – Everyone around Scott told him he would only lose – his partner, the Pan Pacific championships, his status as one of Kendall’s dance studio’s top dancers. It made him falter a lot and really question if he was doing the right thing.
💃 It only takes one person to support your change to get momentum, and it doesn’t have to be someone with formal influence. Once one person publicly supports change others will follow, and before you know it you have a critical mass of people standing behind you. First, Fran – who was at the bottom of the dance studio’s social order - was the only one who supported Scott. Then Fran’s dad and abuela got behind them. Crucially, Les decided to finally tell Scott the truth and begged him to follow his heart.. AND started slow clapping when the music got shut off, and was joined by the rest of the audience. Everyone else then got on board (even Liz!) to support Scott and Fran.
💃Sometimes you won’t get all the change you want, and that's ok. Disrupting the status quo and getting people to see things differently is often a big enough achievement, and it opens the door for more changes in the future. In the end, Scott didn’t win the Pan Pacifics – he was disqualified – but he didn’t even care. He got to dance his steps, his way - and even better - he fell in love! Expecting to be able to dance his new steps and also win the competition was perhaps a bit too unrealistic.
💃 The movie’s central theme – that a life lived in fear is a life half lived – should be the mantra of every change agent and change leader. What kind of legacy will you leave if you were too scared to stand up for what you really believed in? If you put your own self interest above the greater good?
What lessons did you get from the movie? If you haven’t watched it in a while, I cannot recommend it enough. It’s such a banger.
10 ways men can be better allies to women in the workplace
I attended the 'March 4 Justice' rally today in Melbourne, as part of a co ordinated series across Australia. They were organised following a number of shocking alleged sexual assaults were reported involving senior politicians and their staff on young female employees in Canberra, our nation's capital.
Of course, what we want most is an end to sexual assault and harassment in the workplace. So if you're a man who doesn't do this, do you get a gold star?
No, no you don't get a gold star mate. Simply not being a rapist doesn't mean you can pat yourself on the back and put your feet up, there is plenty more you can do to ensure women get a fair go at work.
I came home from the rally and started furiously jotting down all the things men can do to better advocate for us. This is not the exhaustive list, but is a start. Here goes......
If you manage a team, compare the salaries of the men and women in that team. If there is a gap, work with your HRBP to close it.
If a woman is talked over or interrupted by a man in a meeting, call it out and give the space back to the woman that was interrupted. Eg ‘You were just interrupted; would you like to finish what you were saying?’
Similarly, if a man repeats an idea suggested by a woman as his own original idea, call that out by saying ‘that’s a good summary of the idea that was just raised by x.’
Stop being a bystander to sexist behaviour. The standard you walk past is the standard you accept. Tell the office creeps they need to pull their heads in. Men are more likely to listen to other men than a woman. Use your privilege to speak up for us.
If a female colleague tells you she has been harassed or assaulted in the workplace, believe her.
If a female discloses inappropriate behaviour, harassment or assault to you, don’t insist she report it. There are a number of reasons a woman doesn't want to report, one main one being; reporting is very unlikely to result in consequences for the male perpetrator. It almost always, however, has severe ramifications for the woman. Speaking up about assault is a known career killer. Pressuring a woman to report an incident is naïve and unhelpful.
If you are invited to speak at a conference, ask the organisers if at least 50% of the speakers will be women and whether they will be paid the same as male speakers. Do not participate in events that don't meet this criteria.
If you are hiring, ask your recruiter to ensure any candidate shortlist contains 50% female CVs. Studies show that once women get shortlisted they are more likely to get hired.
Do your googles! Do not expect women in your workplace to educate you on gender issues. There is a plethora of information available for free, and hey you could even go all out and read some books.
Refrain from asking women to do labour in the office that is not part of their job description: eg taking minutes, unpack dishwashers, organise team events, morning teas... and so on and so forth.
Thanks for reading, and next week there might be another 10 (I have a pretty long list).
Tash
8 ways agile benefits change practitioners
I’ve come across more than a few change managers and project professionals who are wary or sceptical of agile. It’s different to the way they are used to doing things and they aren’t sure how to apply traditional change practices. I’m here to tell you there’s actually a lot about agile that is great for us, so lean in and get reading!
1. People over Process:
Agile ways of working actually encourage projects and teams to seek out the input of customers and impacted teams. Change managers are often the lone voice of the customer or end user on waterfall projects. Seeing things from a customer or employee’s point of view is part of the core principles of agile, and incorporating human centred design principles and artefacts (such as journey and empathy maps) into implementation planning is very common. The manifesto principle of individuals and interactions over processes and tools rings true for us as change managers.
2. Getting the right people in the room:
Agile ways of working are all about getting involvement from product owners, SMEs, leaders and sponsors. In command and control environments, stakeholders and sponsors are way too ‘busy and important’ to come along to things us lowly change managers or project folk organise. This is usually accompanied by an expectation that we will implement the change with no effort or input from them. Agile is all about executive and sponsor visibility and participation. Modern leaders are excited to attend agile ceremonies and see what their teams have been up to. Use this to your advantage.
3. Ditch the massive templates
Expectations are for lean documentation and MVP. No one is asking you to complete lots of large templated deliverables, so why are you doing it? Put the PROSCI to one side and get your lean canvas on!
4. Many change managers are agile by nature.
A lot of the ways of working that come naturally to us as change practitioners actually link in really nicely with agile. Take the comms plan for example - how many times have you written one and stuck to it - to the letter - for the entire duration of your project? I don’t think I have done that once. We are always reflecting and evaluating how comms land. That process of experimentation and learning is agile (more on agility of change managers here).
5. Lean methods suit lean (aka solo) change teams:
We never have the amount of people in the change team to be able to do everything that needs to be done. Being freed of old fashioned expectations about what change deliverables need to be produced is good when you’re under resourced and under the pump.
Recently I was chatting to a mate who was lamenting how he’d found himself in this exact situation. He’d asked for analyst resources and got told no – and was expected to deliver the same amount of work on 3 change projects. Then the go live dates of the projects changed so they were all going live early – and at the same time. He was working a lot of hours but felt like he was just saying ‘no’ to every request. Then he’d been asked by a PM for an ETA on a change plan that had fallen behind. I suggested he start using the lean change canvas instead of the traditional change plan to save himself some time and promptly sent some examples over. If you’ve got competing priorities and a lot to get through some different ways of working can really help you out.
6. Apply the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) concept to change:
Developing an MVP for your change effort with your stakeholders upfront is a great idea when you’re working as a solo resource on a large or multiple projects – OR if you’ve been brought on only a few weeks before go live. If a company or program is too stingy to pay for additional resources or too disorganised to bring them on at the right time then they have no business expecting you to work nights and weekends to meet outdated expectations of change.
7. Fail Fast Learn Often
Failure is encouraged – as well as learning by experimentation. Which is great for us changies as we can drop some small changes, and see how they land, rather than a ‘big bang’ go live, and stakeholders expecting everything to be perfect. And blaming poor change management when things go wrong.
8. Done is better than perfect
This can be a hard concept for many of us to accept (myself included!) but because we have permission to fail and the concept of MVP is encouraged, it means we no longer have to fuss and continuously rework our plans to make them perfect (multiple fonts on the same slide are still unacceptable though). Rough and visible work is encouraged and this speeds up delivery. Once you have something that’s getting your main points across and is 70% complete start sharing it with people.
Want more? Register for one my workshops on ‘Delivering Change in Agile Environments’ here.
Public Service Announcement for Change Managers:
YOU - YES YOU!
You are more agile than you think.
As a change manager, do you ever think to yourself you don’t know agile? You need to learn more? If only you were a SCRUM master or an agile coach, THEN you would know all of the agile things? What does a SCRUM master even do anyway? Is agile supposed to be capitalised? Are SCRUM and agile the same thing?
Put a stop to the merry go round of impostor syndrome and negative self talk, changies! I’m here to tell you, you are more agile than you think.
How many times have you written a comms plan and stuck to it - to the letter - for the entire duration of your project? We are always reflecting and evaluating how comms land - would the message be better if it was delivered by someone else? Should we use a different medium? That’s agile.
How many times have you begged your PM or project sponsor to start with a pilot and/or staggered rollout as opposed to a big bang go live? So any defects or issues uncovered can be ironed out and managed within a small group before the project has to support thousands of users? Also agile.
How often do you suggest involving end users or seeking customer insights early in a project (or at all, let’s be real) to be met with blank stares and the sound of tumbleweeds? Gone red in the face trying to explain the customer or end user’s point of view and experience? You guessed it, that’s agile.
So much of what we instinctively do as change practitioners is agile. You are a lot more experienced than you think in agile ways of working. So get out of your own way, get in there and show ‘em how it’s done!
Managing Resistance to Change Part 3 — Additional Tips and Tricks
In my previous posts, I’ve outlined:
How to define change resistance,
What are some of the key behaviours to look out for,
What change resistance is not,
Why resistance happens,
What you need to do to ensure it doesn’t happen or counter it.
Now in the final part in this series I’m going to share some of the tips and tricks I’ve picked up along the way. Usually by saying the wrong thing, making mistakes and working out why certain things happened well after the fact using the magical power of hindsight (and a few more projects and years experience under my belt).
When resistance does appear, it should not be thought of as a problem that needs to go away. Instead, it is as a useful red flag — a signal that something is going or about to go wrong. Having open and honest conversations about why a change might not be right for your business, and actually listening to your staff could save you untold dollars in lost sales, productivity or reputation.
The end users hate the chay-chay-chay-chay-change, I’m just gonna shake-shake-shake-shake…
Don’t take it personally. I know when you have invested many months (and sometimes a piece of your soul) into a project how much it can sting when an end user or stakeholder trashes it right to your face. If someone is being angry, hostile, passive, etc don’t take it personally! Remember that this person is reacting to the change — not you or specific work that you’ve done — and their behaviour indicates they are moving through the change cycle. Most of the time it has nothing to do with you at all.
Obviously this doesn’t mean be a doormat — If someone is behaving in a way that breaches your company’s values or code of conduct you should remind them of that during the interaction and potentially report it to your manager.
Don’t mention the war: Do not ever, under any circumstances tell someone they are being change resistant. They will NOT like it. Similarly, don’t ever tell someone’s manager, a sponsor or senior stakeholder that a person or a group is being change resistant. DO discuss the problem and concerns but choose your words carefully.
I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it allright…..
The first reason given for opposing a change? Often not the real reason at all. When you are talking to someone who is resisting a change, make sure you ask a LOT of questions to ensure you understand what is really going on. Use the ‘5 why’s’. Get to the bottom of the issue. Often change resistance is because of a deeply personal reason and trust needs to be built in order for the real reason to come out. This is why sometimes people lie about their reasons for opposing (which can then create a flurry of reactive activity within a project team).
That really annoying person that won’t shut up about why the change won’t work? = YOUR NEW BFF. It takes a lot of courage to speak out against something. Most people will smile and nod during a meeting and then bitch amongst themselves as soon as it’s over. The opinions of this person may reflect the opinions of many others, who are not confident speaking up, and will passively sit back and let this person be the one to stick their neck out.
Sometimes in the past this person has been me, firstly because I am a change manager and I think (sometimes naively) ‘oh well they obviously want our feedback and troubleshooting of issues early will help the project!’ but secondly because I actually can’t sit by quietly while something that is not right for staff or customers gets implemented. Many times, after I’ve spoken up in a meeting and/or said the thing no one else had the guts to say, 5 or 6 people come up to me after the meeting and say ‘OMG thank you soooo much for bringing that up! I really wanted to say it but was just way too scared!’
Whose favourite dinosaur ISN’T the Velociraptor?
That person, the one who always speaks up — ignoring them and wishing they would go away is the absolute worst thing you can do. This person is your new bestie. Have a coffee with them, take them out for lunch, LISTEN to what they have to say, they obviously aren’t afraid to be honest with you or your superiors. Make sure you have the message right, take notes, usually summarising a conversation in an email is a good idea. These people are usually leaders within their peer groups, so if you can involve them and turn them into an advocate for the change, they will spread a lot of positive noise around and really make your life easier. Without the support from these types of people it will be almost impossible to counter resistance.
People who are labelled as ‘annoying’ or ‘mouthy’ are often excluded from testing or pilot exercises. This is a mistake. If you only include people in these exercises who won’t ask questions and will sign things off, you are in for some major trouble when your project goes live.
That’s it for now on resistance to change. I would love to hear what kind of things would be helpful to you — real life examples of resistance and what I did to counter it? Examples of times I made mistakes and what I learnt from that? Let me know.
I hope this information helps you on your change management journeys.
Tash :)
Managing Resistance to Change Part 2— Why Resistance Happens and How to Counter it
Great idea — but could place a little pressure on the project budget….
In my last post, I talked about how to define change resistance, what some of the key behaviours to look out for are and what change resistance is not. This post will outline why resistance happens and what you need to do to ensure it doesn’t happen or counter it.
Why Resistance Happens
Fear of the unknown: This happens mainly when change is implemented without warning the impacted groups beforehand. When change (particularly when it’s perceived as negative) is pushed onto people without giving them adequate warning or helping them through the process of understanding what the change will include and how their jobs/work will be affected, it can cause people to push back.
Lack of trust: If a team or department highly respect their leaders because they have built up trust over a period of time, the team will be more accepting of any changes. If management is new and has not yet earned the trust of their employees, then mistrust can manifest itself into resistance to change. Similarly mistrust may occur because of changes that were implemented badly in the past.
Fear of loss: If people think they will be worse off as a result of the change, they won’t fully support it. Fears around job security arise when restructuring (every 6 months at most large Australian companies these days) or offshoring happens. This causes fear among employees that they will lose their jobs or be moved into other positions. Loss of control could come about as a result of process changes (eg — someone might be an integral part of a process which will no longer be followed). It could also be because a loss of status as a result of the change (eg — they could be an ‘expert’ in a legacy system that is about to be decommissioned, now that person is a beginner learning the new system the same as everyone else).
Poor timing: I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been pressured to implement initiatives in December, right before Christmas! In retail! When it’s the busiest sales period of the year! It’s usually because the executive sponsor has a KPI to implement the project within the year or quarter, so all logic and concern goes out the window if there’s a whiff of an executive not getting their bonus. Heaping too much change on to your staff over a short period of time can cause change fatigue. Today’s change fatigue will be tomorrow’s change resistance. If change is not implemented at the right time you can have major resistance and adoption issues.
An individual’s openness to change Some people just don’t like change. The folks who are set in their ways (they might say things like ‘this is how we’ve always done things here’) are usually the people who are suspicious of change and likely to resist. Most people are open minded towards change as they might be getting an opportunity to do something new or develop professionally. Some however may recognise that changes within their company mean new or different skills are required, and worry that they might not be able to learn the skills or be the right cultural fit once the change is implemented.
Failure to create an environment conducive to change. Often a response to a proposed change may be positive however can soon turn negative, because of reasons including:
· Failure to commit sufficient resources to the change (eg not hiring a change manager or having enough staff on the project team, skimping on necessary software and going with a cheaper or less customised option that may not be the best, being stingy about training, go to market or launch activities).
· Failure to prove the case for change — if people don’t understand or agree with the reason for the change it will be very hard to convince them to adopt it.
· Failure to tie the change to company values
· Failure to allow front line staff or end users to participate in the change
· Past failure to implement change
· Failure to understand the impact of the change and plan accordingly.
So much fail. All of which make the change manager’s job so much harder
How to Manage Resistance to Change
OK, now that we have successfully identified the key reasons for resistance to change, we can talk about how to deal with it. Firstly, and of course I am going to say this, make sure you carry out good change planning (maybe like, hire a good change manager, or something even?) and try to anticipate areas of resistance, so you can plan ahead as to how to deal with them. Being aware of potential pockets of resistance will help you implement the change with fewer issues.
Prior to making changes that will affect others, it’s important to carefully think through:
· What the specific changes are
· Who will be impacted
· How it will impact them
· How they might react
Otherwise known as a change impact assessment! And not just what you think, run it by some representatives from the impacted area and get it peer reviewed. Getting input from people who are different to you (eg if you are extrovert get input from an introvert, if you are tech savvy ask the opinion of a luddite), have a different perspective, work in different roles in your company — or if you are able to, actual customers — will help address any personal blind spots you might have.
As an example, a few years ago I had a high performing, super intelligent grad helping me with the change management for new technology in a retail environment. She was tasked with completing the change impact assessment and she really struggled to think about how people working in the retail outlet would be impacted. She said ‘if this was me I would just do it. I can’t understand why we need training, they will just pick it up.’ Because she was so tech-savvy and probably also an actual genius, she had no awareness or understanding that others might find it really baffling to just use a new piece of technology and would quickly revert back to the old way of doing things without being shown how to use it and supported well if issues arose during implementation.
Developers are also extremely guilty of this. Every time I hear ‘it’s been designed to be intuitive enough so that anyone can just pick it up and use it, no training is required’, it raises a huge red flag with me. Sure, anyone who is also a UX designer can use it without being shown but can your grandma or a regular person who just isn’t very technically savvy use it?
May as well walk into Mordor and get eaten by orcs….
Next, write down how to plan on implementing the change — including a detailed timeline, communication & training plans, potential points of resistance and who will do what. Otherwise known as a change plan! Socialise it in the same way I’ve outlined above. If you are a leader who has hired a change manager to help you lead the change, ask them to walk you through all of these documents so you have a detailed understanding of what is happening when, and what is expected of you in terms of leading and role modelling the change. Make sure key stakeholders and impacted staff are across the plan, so there are no surprises when implementation begins.
So, you’ve done your impact assessment, change & implementation planning, executed well on those plans, but you are still encountering resistance! Here are some tips for countering each of the types of change resistance I mentioned earlier:
Fear of the unknown
· Communicate (this does NOT mean just sending an email!!). Make sure you give people an early heads up about the change, what it means and how it will affect them. Be clear, direct and honest. Don’t be vague and tailor messaging to the audience.
· Make sure relevant training is completed and is effective. Staff need to be comfortable that they will have the necessary know how to be able to do their jobs (and under pressure too — eg in front of an angry customer!!) when the change is implemented.
· Make sure there is support for staff and they know they won’t be left high and dry after a change is implemented, and the project team have all packed up and gone home. Examples include Intranet resources, toolkits, FAQ, peer support, super users, SMEs, hypercare and post deployment support. Ensure this is known upfront by impacted staff.
Lack of trust
· Make sure managers and executives are on board with the change and are leading by example
· Have ‘change champions’ at all levels of the organisation, so new ideas are being championed by peers as well as managers & executives.
· Get your front line or impacted teams involved in the change (from the beginning, not just when things start going wrong) and encourage two way communication. You need to ask teams for ideas and suggestions, not in a backhanded way as part of a box-ticking exercise, but in a straightforward way to get some good ideas and avoid some unnecessary mistakes.
· Make sure feedback is addressed and ideas/suggestions are implemented, issues are resolved etc. Many people become passively resistant because they feel like their ideas and feedback hasn’t been listened to or acted upon. Creating a safe environment where people can openly and honestly discuss issues and make suggestions is imperative.
· Make sure the right people are on board and they are able to prioritise your project or initiative.
Fear of loss
· Don’t sugar coat it. If people are losing something, tell them. Similarly if people won’t be losing anything make this known upfront as well.
· Be respectful. Ensure impacted people are the first to know, not the last. Give people time to absorb the change and expect a broad range of reactions.
· Be honest and authentic — obviously reading from a script provided by HR is a no-no, as is using lots of corporate jargon or being vague.
Bad Timing
· Get your frontline or impacted people involved in the change (from the beginning, not just when things start going wrong) and encourage two way communication. They will give you a good early heads up about what timing will work for them. Make sure feedback is addressed and ideas/suggestions are implemented, issues are resolved etc
· Speak to people in other business units and get an idea of what other changes might be impacting a specific group of people at a given time. Be prepared to be flexible
· Upwardly manage executive expectation. This may involve saying no. Ensure projects are implemented when the time is right for customers or staff, not senior management.
· Provide a clear vision and reason for the change along with schedule of what to expect and when to expect it (you know, like a change plan or something idk)
People with a poor predisposition towards change
· Give them some space. Work on your early adopters. They will eventually get on board as they see their peers making changes and realising the benefits
· Use your change champions — by having members of their peer group adopt the change and talk about how well it is working for them, people are often more likely to listen to their peers than management
· Use the ‘Five ‘Whys’. Ask probing questions about the reasons there is opposition to the change. You might be surprised by what you find out. Quite often the first reason given for opposing a change is not the real reason.
Failure to create an environment conducive to change
All those things that you failed to do? Try to do them. Learn from past mistakes. Upwardly manage your executive sponsors. Ensure the consequences of certain actions are known.
I hope you found this information useful. In the 3rd and final installment of this series, I’ll be sharing additional tips and tricks I’ve picked up along the way (usually by making mistakes — so you don’t have to!).
Managing Resistance to Change: Part 1 - Defining Resistance
If I had a dollar for every time…oh wait that’s my job…
I get asked all the time how I manage resistance to change. I also get told that this is something I’m good at, and seem to always get assigned to projects that either have very challenging stakeholders, or are facing terrible resistance problems that need fixing (don’t even get me started on the ones where they think a change manager might be a good idea AFTER they’ve implemented and it’s been a complete dog’s breakfast and/or they have zero adoption!). So here’s a 3 part summary of everything I’ve picked up along the way(often the hard way — please, learn from my mistakes) about how to identify resistance, why it happens, and how to counter it.
Firstly, A lot of the existing literature on managing resistance to change only ever refers to resistance amongst impacted employees or frontline staff. What I’ve experienced over and over again is program sponsors, middle managers and leaders who are supposed to be helping implement and champion the change are also guilty — big time — of change resistance. Customer facing staff are usually open to change, and are acutely aware of their position in the corporate food chain and what the consequences of resisting change are. I’ve had sponsors distance themselves from their own transformation programs as soon as things start to go bad (hanging the project team out to dry — not cool!) and managers in key change leadership positions actively undermine projects because they were just so wedded to the old way of doing things. So don’t go thinking resistance happens only in certain groups — to be an effective change leader you need to keep an eye out for resistant behaviours from everyone you are dealing with, not just the frontline or impacted teams.
Another thing I feel I really need to point out is a lot of the time a person is not actually resisting the change itself, they are resisting something else, it could be poor project management, communication, and many of the other factors described later. Before throwing a ‘resistant to change’ label on someone firstly consider the statements they are making and where they might be sitting on the change cycle. Someone who says “Over my dead body will this system go live!” (Yes, someone said that verbatim, and hey, we implemented, and that jerk is still alive, and gainfully employed) is probably deserving of the label. People who are asking questions, providing constructive feedback and pointing out possible issues are not — it means they are thinking about how the change is going to work for them, their teams and their customers.
I once worked on a project where a stakeholder kept asking for a demo of the new system. Instead the project manager kept giving her a new version of the same PowerPoint pack as she thought a demo would raise too many questions and questions are hard. The stakeholder got frustrated and annoyed and in turn became very suspicious of whether or not the new system would meet her requirements. The project manager came to me and said ‘hey she’s being very change resistant we need some change management up in here please.’ I was frustrated too, as it seemed so obvious to me that if the stakeholder was asking to see a demo of the system that actually means she had accepted the change and wanted to explore how it was going to work for her.
The ‘resistance’ the project manager described was actually a negative reaction to the project’s poor stakeholder management and communication with her. So I instead of ‘change managing’ our stakeholder, I coached the project manager to build her understanding on why providing a system demo now was important. Doing it early on, in discovery phase, gives the stakeholder the opportunity to have their questions answered and flag/troubleshoot any potential issues, and will repair the trust lost between the business and the project. This will also assist the stakeholder in leading the change within their business unit. If they feel like they are being kept in the dark by the project team, and unsure the change is the right thing to do they won’t champion it for you and may badmouth the project to their teams and managers. Also avoiding potentially hard questions from the stakeholder doesn’t mean they will go away — it means they will arise again right before go live, along with complaints along the lines of ‘we’ve been telling you this for months but no one listened’ which could cause refusal to sign off, poor adoption and delays.
It is the change manager’s role to act as an advocate within the project for stakeholders, customers and end users. Often this means you have to call out poor project behaviours that will have a negative impact on these groups further down the track. It can mean having some difficult conversations and stepping a little outside what some people consider to be the traditional remit of a change manager, but it is for the good of the project and will make your job much easier when it comes time to implement.
It is always important if someone’s behaviour is making your change spidey-sense tingle, to ask yourself the question — am I doing anything wrong? Is the project doing something wrong? Is the way my team or I are going about implementing this change putting people offside? It’s too easy to label someone as resistant to the change without considering or acknowledging how you or your team’s behaviour might be impacting on that person. They might be resistant to you and your crappy project or change management. I’ve had numerous conversations with my project colleagues to ask them to tweak behaviours slightly or try new ways of collaborating with stakeholders. Project people can be just as guilty of being very accustomed to doing things a specific way, and sometimes need to flex their style to suit a particular situation or stakeholder group. It’s hard to acknowledge something the project has done has put someone offside or damaged a key stakeholder relationship.
Ok, now that the pre-rant is over, let’s get into some formal stuff:
Defining Change Resistance
What is Change Resistance?
In short it’s any behaviour that serves to maintain the status quo, when change is imminent. Resistance to change can take the following forms:
· Passive aggressive behaviour– such as accidentally on purpose ‘forgetting’ to do something, procrastinating, being sullen or resentful, displaying a negative attitude or making negative comments
· Avoidance — includes not showing up to project-related meetings, consistently cancelling and rescheduling meetings, not returning calls, being ‘too busy to chat’ when you see them in the office, actually running away when they see you coming (yes it’s happened and I draw the line at following someone into the men’s toilets), taking extra sick days, increased absenteeism
· Defiance — outright refusal to carry out tasks or follow new processes.
· Hostility — this could include outward displays of anger, aggression, or bullying behaviour
· Sabotage– Not following instructions or carrying out tasks correctly, ensuring tests, and pilot results are skewed, then using it as reasons why the change won’t work. Failing to report issues — so they can be resolved by the project team — instead letting them fester and create negative noise and further drama.
With the exception of defiance and maybe hostility, a lot of people may be doing these things unconsciously (especially sabotage) — ie they don’t really know they are doing it. So as a change manager or leader you need to be very careful about how you approach people who are displaying these behaviours.
In part 2, I’ll discuss why resistance to change happens and how to manage it.