When going through any form of change management – whether it be on a small scale, or a large scale transformation program, I’ve never met any leadership team, or private equity stakeholders, who wished the change implementation would go more slowly.
In all cases, time is of the essence and generally speaking the quicker the better.
The small snafu is that when you are dealing with humans who are implementing said changes, you can generally only go so fast.
However the good news is that with some neuroscience we can actually speed up the change management process and keep your humans happy in the process.
So why do humans generally slow down the change management process?
Well there are some more obvious reasons such as:
- It’s natural for people to have a resistance to change – the brain is wired for survival rather than doing anything amazing. The brain is naturally going to go to the worst case scenario like “will I lose my job and not be able to pay the bill” rather than look for the opportunities.
- Lack of appropriate leadership skills – especially at emerging leader levels. So many people are promoted into leadership based on their ability to do their current job without any coaching. While many may fumble their way through enough to help their team get their work done, they certainly aren’t prepared to lead others through change which is typically a stressful situation for many.
- Lack of understanding of why the changes are occurring – what may seem obvious to senior leadership doesn’t necessarily get cascaded down through the ranks, and this couple with the previous two points, can form quite the perfect storm.
But arguably more importantly ,and generally the most overlooked reason…
People have different belief systems about many things, and these don’t change overnight.
Not only that, most leaders don’t have a solid understanding of beliefs, how they are formed, and the process required for changing beliefs. Therefore, while leaders ideally want people to become more aligned in their beliefs through change management, they are actually more likely to force people to become more polarised with their beliefs.
So instead of getting others “on the bus” as we so often want to do, people who otherwise might have been a great addition to said bus, get moved off quickly. This can cause the change management process to slow down in other ways – such as with additional hiring needs, or cost the company a lot of money in lost productivity in the meantime.
And even the people who are largely “on the bus” will have different belief systems about certain aspects that will slow things down, even though they are on the bus.
So what do we actually mean by “belief”?
Firstly, a belief is anything that we believe to be true. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the truth, but it’s our truth. A belief system is developed based on the sum of our experiences which is why we all have different belief systems.
And beliefs are totally fine, assuming they align with goals.
So if anyone in your team has beliefs, which don’t align with the goals, well, you’re in a bit of pickle and you’re unlikely to get those goals.
For example, in a sales environment the revenue targets might suggest that people need to do a certain amount of appointments per week. However, if your team doesn’t believe that they need to do that number of appointments, or that they can’t do that number of appointments, the likelihood of your people achieving the targets is significantly diminished.
So how does this polarisation of beliefs occur?
In neuroscience circles it’s often referred to as the double reinforcement system of beliefs.
Basically our brain likes to save as much cognitive energy (energy credits in NEP speak) as possible. Conflict generally burns through energy credits and activates our negative affect system in the brain. So ideally we like to look for evidence that our current belief system is true.
It just feels better. This is often called confirmation bias.
So when someone says something that goes against our belief system, our brain goes into overdrive to rationalise that we are right so that the negative feeling goes away.
Not only does this justification process take away the negative feeling, but it also activates the reward system in the brain giving us some dopamine. We love that!
So this downplay of the negative feeling, at the same time as activating the reward system, rewards us for doubling down on our own beliefs, instead of listening to understand the beliefs of others. So if we try to change other people’s beliefs, our doubling down will generally cause others to double down on their beliefs and we get further apart instead of closer together.
Sorry private equity people, as long as this is going on in your portfolio companies, your payback period is only going to get longer.
So with all of that in mind, how do we speed up the change management process?
Well the more obvious issues have some more obvious fixes…
- Increase performance culture by increasing the psychological capital of your people. This should be ongoing. The more people are open to opportunities, the less they will see obstacles and be resistant to change.
- Coach your emerging leaders – leading through change management is not a skill that most people have. Anyone who is leading others in any capacity needs coaching and training on this.
- Having leaders at all levels aware of why the changes occur and how to communicate them effectively will go a long way to helping speed up the change.
It’s important to close the belief gap as quickly as possible if you are looking to speed up the change management process
As for helping to close the gap…. That one is a little more tricky and we do a lot of coaching to help with this. However, a few key ideas to get you started…
Firstly uncover what beliefs your people have which might be problematic.
For example, whenever I run change management mindset sessions, part of the session is around identifying what types of beliefs can hinder the change management process.
These could be around client acquisition processes and activities.
These could be around client servicing.
These could be around how quickly different systems can be implemented.
Once you’ve worked out the gap between current and desired beliefs…
- Focus on listening to understand how they came to these beliefs.
- Calmly articulate the thoughts and beliefs of others to show you understand.
- Show compassion for the other person as they have had experiences which have justified their beliefs that you could possibly learn from.
- Seek out the way in which you are aligned. Find the common ground. For example, find alignment around the common purpose and goals.
- Discuss what would be possible if the belief were different? People will only choose to change their beliefs if they have a really good reason to. Otherwise, it’s just not worth their energy credits!
- Use curiosity to ask, what would it take to change their mind?
In business, once the right changes have been agreed upon, the quicker everyone can get these outcomes, the less wasted productivity there is.
Change is inevitable and the speed of change is only going to get faster. Creating a culture that is ready to embrace change, rather than resist or tolerate it, will make life easier (and more profitable) for everyone involved. Never underestimate the power of beliefs to hold an organisation back from faster change management.
Of course, if you’d like to find out more about how to improve performance with less effort why not either book a Performance Call or sign up for our next 20/20 session or one of our open workshops here