MANAGING AFTER CHANGE HAPPENS
You likely see lots of change over your time as a manager at a startup.
What are some examples of change you’ve seen at your current organization, or at other companies?
Here is a video explaining the four reactions to change?
WHY DO PEOPLE RESIST CHANGE?
People resist change for all sorts of reasons:
- The vision isn’t clear
- No one has outlined what change will mean for them in practice
- Communication is poor
- Low levels of involvement and engagement
- They don’t stand to gain or they stand to lose something
- Experience of badly managed changed
- Initiative overload
- It’s too complex
- They have no focus of control and feel done to
- Self interest
- They are in their comfort zone
- Threat to skill or competence
- Threat to power base, status, or autonomy
- It will lead to unintended consequences elsewhere
- It’s too sudden
- Reluctant to experiment
- They are in change shock
- They actually think there is a better way
WHAT DO DO TO GET BUY-IN DURING CHANGE
Involving people so that change has meaning for them;
- Giving them the quantity and quality of information they need to make rational decisions about what is in their best interests;
- Matching the method of communication and involvement to the needs of the different people
- Making sure that the way you act during the transition stage is compatible with the desired future state.
MANAGING BEFORE CHANGE HAPPENS
Here’s a quick video describing how this model works.
If you want to change a widget, you don’t tell the widget to change.
STRATEGIES FOR MINIMIZING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
Above all else involve people. “People will help support what they co-create” Marvin Weisbord
- Paint a compelling vision of the future
- Paint pictures for people of what change means for them in practice
- Involve them in looking at where are we now, where do we want to be, how can we get there? What will be the same/ different, what people will be doing
- Create a burning platform for change
- Help people make the paradigm shifts required