Getting people on board with change is often challenging. This is especially true when those affected feel that they have no say over the direction of change, or where they fear they might be worse off because of the plans. Even those who are responsible for implementing change might struggle to do so if they are unsure whether it is the right approach.
When leaders face resistance to change, they often blame a lack of willingness or commitment among employees. However, this is an unhelpful and often risky assumption to make, as it can disguise a more fundamental organisational challenge – an absent or ineffective change management approach.
When confronted with change, our first response is to seek clarity on what the change will mean for us personally, and then for those we identify with – ie, our teams. Only when we have reconciled ourselves mentally and emotionally with these two concerns, are we able and willing to engage with the broader question of what this change means for the organisation or our society.
This is where the problem lies. Change programmes are often presented to employees as beneficial to the organisation and broader society. There is often an assumption that this is the best way of ensuring that everyone understands both the ‘why’ and the ‘what’ of the change agenda.
However, to really empower people to change, we need to create ample opportunities for them to make sense of the why, the what and the how of their own personal change experience. This calls for managers to prioritise the creation of psychologically safe spaces and places where individuals can have good-quality conversations that lead to awareness, alignment and action at individual and team levels.
It becomes difficult to align stakeholders if they do not share a common understanding of the context in which they all operate. Therefore, one of the first challenges in a complex system like the public sector is to find ways for people to explore the complexity of the challenges together. This means bringing together from different parts of the system people with different perspectives, pain points and priorities into a shared sense-making process.
When we want people to follow us on our change journey, we have a moral duty to lead with care, to make sure others can follow safely. It is not acceptable to get our way by stepping over others or throwing them under a metaphorical bus.
10 TIPS
- Prioritise time for good quality conversations.
- Plan a process to move people from feeling powerless and vulnerable towards feeling empowered and accountable.
- Know who to invite into which conversation to create the appropriate level of awareness, alignment and action for that group of stakeholders.
- Experiment with a process that creates a common language – for example, using methodologies like Lego Serious Play, metaphors or shared stories to explore the lived experience of others.
- Be open to both receive and deliver challenge or inconvenient truths.
- Host the conversations in a way that allows others to speak freely, without fear of shame, blame or retribution.
- Be curious and instil curiosity about the experiences of others and their reasons for opposition or challenge.
- Help the group notice conversational patterns that help or hinder them from achieving alignment and action.
- Ensure key agreements or actions are captured and owned by the group to foster individual and collective accountability.
- Act on lessons learned from shared experience.
