We’ll Change; We Won’t Change

Business is all about a change. Transformation is not a flavor of the week or a fad management strategy; transformation is the cornerstone of business. That’s not to say that all businesses need to change, all the time, only that change is part and parcel of being human, being a group of humans, and being a business. 

So why don’t we change? What impedes change? And what impels change?

There are about a million reasons that we, people, organizations don’t like to change, and they can be clustered into a few buckets. First, lack knowledge impedes change. As Yogi Berra said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” Then, there are loads of personal and organizational barriers. It’s important to understand them, and overcome them in order to enable — and lead — change.

 

The Bank Robber and The Lemon Juice:  We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know

I’m not pointing the finger at a type of business, employee or CEO. Other than a few superhuman individuals and CEOs, my guess is we all have resisted change at some stage in our lives and careers.

There’s an interesting psychological trait at play here. Individuals who are incompetent in a certain skill can exhibit a cognitive bias, called the Dunning-Kruger Effect, which leads them to:
• fail to recognize their own lack of skill
• fail to recognize genuine skill in others

It all started in the criminal case of McArthur Wheeler, who robbed banks with his face covered with lemon juice, which he believed would make it invisible to surveillance cameras. He misunderstood the chemical properties of lemon juice as invisible ink. Now most of us are not making that type of bad decision, but many of us think we have strategy or leadership or management covered, and let’s face it: we don’t. We’re experts in our field, building our business, but we’re not always managing effectively or adapting to market changes. Plus, we can be too close, so we can’t see the forest for the trees.

Barriers to Change

It’s important for individuals and businesses alike to recognize barriers to change. Know what you don’t know, and you’re on your way to getting the right strategy in place, which will help your business in the long run. There are four general barriers to change in the context of businesses and organizations:
1. Perception problem: We don’t know we’re behind.
2. Knowledge problem: We know we’re behind but we don’t know what to do about it.
3. Motivation problem: We may know what to do, but we don’t do it.
4. Capabilities/coordination problem: We know what to do and we want to do it, but we can’t get it done.

 

Top Ten

Change is a journey, something new and different and usually at lest a little bit difficult. It’s no surprise we often resist change. Here are the top ten reasons people resist business or organizational change:

1. Loss of control
2. Excess uncertainty
3. Too many surprises, and too many at once
4. Everything seems different
5. Loss of face; old guard resistance
6. Concerns about competence (and obsolescence)
7. More work
8. Ripple effects and other disruptions
9. Past resentments
10. Change, like love, hurts

See: “Ten Reasons People Resist Change” by Rosabeth Moss Kanter in the Harvard Business Review.

Change Drivers

We need strategic plans, maps, checklists, action plans and teams to execute them. But before all of that, we need emotion, the will to change. That starts deep inside the individual, or the group of change drivers. As Simon Sinek, author of Start with Why, puts it: “We’d achieve more if we chase the dream, rather than the competition.” Emotion drives change.

A growth mindset is common to all people who effect positive change — and all leaders who lead successful business transformation. What is a growth mindset? Let’s start with what it’s not. A growth mindset is not, according to psychologist and Mindset author Carol Dweck, a fixed mindset: “In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success.” On the other hand, the growth mindset is the belief that we can get smarter, figure stuff out, solve problems, and that we’re not stuck with the traits and abilities we start with. “In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point,” Dwek writers. “This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.”

If leadership is all about change, then leaders must be agents of change, the true believers. They must also understand the sources and symptoms of resistance to change.

Get Going Now

The “when” part of the puzzle is easy. When is the right time to embark on strategic change? When is a good time for leaders to begin that transformation? When is a good time to build lasting competitive advantage? Today.

Take a look at our leadership capabilities.

 

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